The Race of Cain
by Kerjen
Summary: Someone is killing the Hellguard survivors and Saavik is the latest victim. Now the crew of the Enterprise fights along side of Sarek and Amanda to catch the killer. Novel length story. FINISHED! Thanks for the reviews! Please keep sending them!
1. Chapter 1

PHASE I

_Shed no tears for me; there'll be rain enough today.  
I'm wishing you Godspeed as I wave you on your way.  
This won't be the first time I've stayed behind to face  
the bitter consequences of an ancient fall from grace.  
I'm a daughter of the race of Cain.  
I am not a stranger to the rain._

* * *

**Chapter 1**

Amanda gazed out of the lounge's large windows to San Francisco's evening sky. The lights of the city sparkled much like the stars in the dark. The Golden Gate Bridge with its subdued, enhancing lighting brought a touch of color and splashed radiance on the bay below it. Little points of darting light from ships and cars zipped like fireflies in the darkness, and the grandness of Starfleet Command ruled over it all.

Amanda's eyes twinkled as she thought of a beloved someone who preferred the stars dominate over any city lights, especially as skylines dimmed the natural brilliance of the heavens. But for Amanda herself, it was good to be back on Earth again.

_Earth_. She wondered when she stopped thinking of it as home. She was certainly not fully a part of this world anymore. Like any time she traveled – and being who and what she was, she traveled quite a bit -- she felt chilled after living so long in the desert heat, and the change of gravity had made her a bit dizzy at first. Vulcan had definitely made itself her home long ago which she regretted not at all.

Not that she still didn't love Earth. She would always be of it, even if her place was on that desert world that she'd come to love and see for its beauty.

She sipped from her champagne flute, trying to remember how long it had been since she was this happy. A visit here, including the luncheon today with her aunt and sister, and most of all, the fact she could put a hand behind her and touch both husband and son -- at peace, talking harmoniously over the new Klingon treaty they had worked together to bring about. She smiled into her drink.

She turned back into the room. _It's good to see all of them again._ She still couldn't believe Jim Kirk had retired. She knew from Spock that without the _Enterprise_ to command, Kirk couldn't see staying with Starfleet, but she wondered what he would do instead. She thought he looked a little lost behind the pleasant face that was beaming at everyone in the room.

Most of his command crew was here: Spock, McCoy, Chekov, Scotty, and Uhura. Sulu naturally was with _Excelsior_. And Valeris was under arrest... Amanda put the champagne down, no longer wanting its bite on her tongue.

Besides the command officers were other _Enterprise_ crew members and a myriad of friends Kirk had made over the years, but he stayed closest to the first group. They were separating soon. With their one month leave up following the Khitomer Treaty, Chekov was leaving for a first officer's position, Uhura was temporarily assigned here at Starfleet Command, and Scotty was trying his hand at ship design, specifically with engineering modifications. Amanda hadn't heard what Spock or McCoy planned to do. She had a small, secret hope that her son would also leave the Fleet. She was enormously proud of him, but she was his mother. She hated seeing him risk his life.

She slipped next to Sarek, listening to him talk with their son. Not far away, an admiral spoke with Kirk about the shake-up at Starfleet because of Cartwright's conspiracy against the Klingons. Even the Academy was under examination, some wondering if Cartwright manipulated records to move Valeris to the head of her class and, therefore, to _Enterprise_. Amanda saw Spock's subtle reaction when he heard the words, and wished for the hundredth time she had shared her concerns about Valeris more openly with him.

Looking in Kirk's direction, she saw two officers enter the lounge: a blonde, bearded, middle-aged human male and a tall, brunette human woman. Amanda chuckled that she automatically classified them as humans when before her life with Sarek, she'd never have done it. The two hesitated at the door and then crossed the room in her direction. The chuckle strangled in her throat as she immediately recognized the look they wore, a unique somber expression and tight body language that clenched her heart.

They weaved amongst the crowd, and she prayed for each person they approached, wondering if he or she was the one about to hear dreadful news. But the officers kept coming. Her hand brushed Sarek's, the touch electrifying him with her anxiousness. He gazed sharply at her and then in the direction where she looked.

The officers were up to Kirk now. "Excuse me, sir," the man said, and then moved past him. That's when she knew they were headed for her. She was the only other one in line with their path and she saw their eyes lock onto hers. Kirk was watching them and now McCoy had noticed too; their faces grew grave in recognition.

She moaned softly, leaning closer to her husband, and knew he identified that look as well. It was the same expression the Starfleet officers wore when they came years ago to tell Sarek and Amanda their son was dead, killed in the line of duty.

She reached out and lightly laid her hand on Spock's wrist, reassuring herself. With him solid next to her, she didn't care that the gesture was illogical; even Sarek was darting a glance at Spock standing healthy and very much alive next to them.

The officers were only a few steps away from her now. The seconds it took for them to reach her stretched into an endless, building tension until each step seemed to be in slow motion. She almost imagined hearing the thud when their feet struck the floor, replacing the beats of her frozen heart. She heard a phantom voice giving her the memorized words they'd use: _We're sorry to inform you..._

Another moan escaped, forming the name she knew they were about say: "Saavik."

The man spoke first in that rehearsed tone she dreaded. "Amanda of Vulcan, we're sorry to inform you that Lieutenant Saavik has been seriously injured during a shipboard accident."

And Amanda's heart started beating again. "She's alive?" She wondered if her voice was as weak as it sounded in her ears. In that moment of resurging hope, she didn't even care they had Saavik's rank wrong.

"Yes, ma'am. However, she's en route to Vulcan--"

"The injuries are that severe?" She should let him just say what he came to say, but she couldn't stand here and listen to a speech.

"It's not that, ma'am. The _Aerfen's _chief medical officer, Dr. Aakheltok, noticed symptoms the Vulcan Science Academy told him to watch for. They requested Mr. Saavik be transferred to their facilities for treatment."

She was looking at Sarek, but she spoke to the officers. "What symptoms?"

"Dizziness, double vision, increased loss of hand and eye coordination -- in fact, that's what caused her accident. Apparently she was struck by a severe case of vertigo, lost her equilibrium, and fell from a catwalk, crashing onto the roof of a shuttle before she landed on the deck."

Amanda closed her eyes, feeling shards of sympathy pain as she imagined the accident. Sarek spoke then, and his deep tones calmed her as always.

"You said this Dr. Aakheltok contacted the Science Academy. Did they say Saavik had entered Phase I?"

Amanda braced for the inevitable answer.

The woman officer replied after exchanging a look with her partner, clearly communicating they had planned to tell it differently than this. "Yes, sir. That's exactly what they said. In fact, they gave us a message to give to you and your wife."

"And this message is?"

"The first part you've already said yourself. The Science Academy said you were already aware of a syndrome discovered in the last few years. Mr. Saavik is believed to be in Phase I of this new hybrid disease."

McCoy and Kirk abruptly looked at Spock. It was the first time Amanda noticed his expression was made of granite -- hard and inexpressive. She knew it had nothing to do with hearing about the disease and everything to do with hearing Saavik's name.

The female officer continued. "Vulcan also reports two more Phase III casualties. The death count is now five hybrids total."

Amanda dug her nails into the palm of her free hand. She never let go of her husband with the other. _Five dead! And Saavik's in Phase I when everyone thought she wouldn't contact the disease at all! It's been years and she never showed symptoms._

Sarek looked over the heads of those standing near him and spied a door for another room. "Follow me," he ordered the officers, and they were whisked away in his and Amanda's wake. Unasked, but knowing they were wanted, were Kirk, McCoy, and the still quiet Spock.

The small meeting room was furnished only with a conference table and chairs. Smaller art pieces, mostly paintings of Federation worlds, decorated the walls, and the tinier windows barely let in a view. The air was stuffy as if the room was unused for a long time.

Once alone, Sarek turned back to the officers. "The hybrids involved are Vulcan. Any others in the Federation are not affected. I must request the information given you by the Science Academy be kept confidential. I will speak with Starfleet Command and the Federation Council for their approval of this, so you need not think you are in conflict with your orders."

They nodded in agreement. The woman tilted her head, curious. "Excuse me, Ambassador, but where you expecting this?"

"No," Sarek answered, "but it was not entirely impossible. Was there anymore to your message?"

"Yes, sir. Healer Sorel requests that you both return to Vulcan as soon as possible. He needs to speak with you about the cause of this disease, so we're to send your reply immediately. This is his full report." She handed it to Sarek.

Amanda interrupted firmly. "Tell Sorel we must clear our schedules, but we will come home on the first ship possible. I'd also like you to get a message to Lieutenant Commander Saavik."

The officers exchanged looks again. The man cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but with the current upset at Starfleet Command, all promotions were put on hold until they're reviewed again. That included Lieutenant Saavik's. You understand, they have to make sure someone is not being bumped up in rank because they were in liege with the conspiracy. And, ma'am, the lieutenant is unconscious. She can't hear your message. Perhaps you'd rather--"

Amanda interrupted firmly. "Send my message and make sure someone tells it to her. She'll hear it. Please?" she made herself add. The man swallowed and nodded. "Tell her she's my favorite stray."

They both blinked at her, almost in unison. After all the fuss she'd made, Amanda knew they expected something bigger than this.

"Excuse me?" the woman said.

"She'll understand. Thank you, officers."

The dismissal was obvious, and the officers looked relieved in following it. They nodded in respect and left.

"My wife," Sarek said as the door closed behind them, "being harsh with them for doing their duty was illogical."

She ignored that. "Sarek, five dead! Spock, I want--" She stopped when she saw how utterly still her son was.

He actually stepped back when she moved to him. "Mother", he said stiffly, "why are you on Saavik's emergency contact list?"

She wondered how long it had been since he had said that name. Her heart thudded against her ribs. She never planned to tell him this way. "Spock... I know you two stopped talking a couple years ago, but I thought I could keep my friendship with her despite that. I did explain it to you once before. I asked her to put me on that list. It wasn't easy to convince her, but it was important to me."

Spock nodded once with an abrupt jerk of his head. She didn't understand why Kirk and McCoy showed echoes of his coldness. "As you wish, Mother. It is your concern, and you did inform me at the time of your continued association. However, as you have not mentioned Saavik's name in quite some time --"

She wished he would look at her instead of over her head. "I didn't think that'd be a good idea."

"Of course," Spock said, and she understood it'd be the last he'd say on the subject for a long time. "Father, the important matter is the five deaths. I was not aware the hybrid disease was fatal."

"Is Spock in any danger?" Kirk asked.

Sarek was eyeing his son, not liking the tone he had used with Amanda. He wanted to say something about the lack of respect, but she caught his eye and shook her head slightly.

Sarek and Spock were good men. Stubborn and strangely easy to hurt in many ways, and once they got their teeth into an idea, hell or high water wouldn't change their minds. Only time itself had half a chance. But not in this case. She had to heal this with Spock herself; she couldn't let Sarek do it for her.

He reluctantly let it go. "No, Captain, we believe not. The disease has not shown itself in Vulcan/Human hybrids."

"There are more than Spock?"

"You will remember Dr. Daniel Corrigan married Sorel's daughter, T'Mir. They have two daughters."

"Is this why I was asked to give Spock a physical a few years back?" McCoy asked. "I was told to look for the symptoms you mentioned."

"Correct, Doctor," Sarek said. "When the disease first appeared, all hybrids were checked."

"What about Saavik?" McCoy asked further.

"And how many hybrids are we talking about?" Kirk added.

Sarek took a breath and motioned for them to take a seat. McCoy and Kirk did, but Spock remained standing, his hands folded tightly behind his back. Amanda stubbornly pulled up a seat close to him, and resisted the urge to shake him. Hard.

"I believe I should start from the beginning," Sarek said. "Approximately 7.19 years ago, three hybrids exhibited vertigo, poor circulation in the extremities, and the other symptoms you heard earlier. No cause was found and the problem ran its course in a few days, disappearing soon after. The only item the patients had in common was the fact they were hybrids."

A dawning look of comprehension rose over McCoy's face. "Romulan hybrids, right? I mean Vulcan/Romulan hybrids -- excuse the abbreviation, but the full thing is a mouthful."

Darting a look at Spock, Sarek said, "To differentiate between types of Vulcan hybrids, the shorthand is acceptable. Yes, these particular people were half-Romulan. As nothing more came of it, the incidents were simply noted on their medical records. However, within the following six years, all Romulan hybrids living on Vulcan experienced this condition followed by a second phase."

The doctor in McCoy came out. "What happens in this following phase?"

Amanda gave her husband credit. His voice and facial cast never changed while he listed the symptoms of Phase II. No one probably picked up what the phase was a mockery of, but if McCoy saw the medical reports, he'd figure it out fast enough. "Loss of emotional control, increasing aggression, in addition to other similar traits. Like Phase I, the second stage was non-lethal. However, the disease has developed into a third phase. It did not appear until over a year after the second. This third stage has proved fatal. By this time, the hybrids entered the phase more or less as a group with only a few days to a week difference."

"No one jumps to Phase II or III? They all go through the first phase?" McCoy emphasized. When Sarek replied that was true, the doctor scratched the back of his head and glanced sideways at Spock. "That's why they didn't say to look for any symptoms but the first ones. And only the half-Romulans living on Vulcan full time got it? That's why Saavik's not showing anything until now?"

Sarek nodded. "Until this point, Sorel and the other healers theorized some element on Vulcan was creating this condition. Saavik is away from Vulcan more than she is ever there, and the disease began before she lived on the planet."

"What about the hybrids -- the Romulan ones -- who've never lived on Vulcan at all?"

Amanda was startled. Until now, she assumed McCoy knew what he did about the half-Romulans from the prolonged stay on Vulcan after Spock's _fal-tor-pan_. But if that were true, he'd never know about the hybrids that not only refused the genetic scan to find their Vulcan families, but also refused to follow the Vulcan path at all. She was about to ask him how he knew all this when she put two and two together. She saw Sarek had caught her slip, one he hadn't made himself. _He doesn't need to be so smug about it_ and her answering look told him so.

"Those hybrids," Sarek answered, unfazed by his wife's mockery, "were warned to contact Vulcan if they ever exhibited Phase I traits, as Saavik was and as you and Spock were. However, I see by Sorel's report that with Saavik in Phase I, he is contacting these people now asking them to come to Vulcan's orbital station. If they do not enter the disease, we might discover what is it about the planet that creates this condition by comparing their systems to Saavik's and the others."

Amanda wished Spock wouldn't flinch in that tiny way whenever Saavik's name was mentioned.

Kirk asked again. "How many hybrids are we talking about?"

Spock answered that. "Thirty three total including those living on Vulcan and those not. With the deaths, the original count drops to twenty eight."

Kirk shot a look at McCoy. "And _you_ knew about all this?"

Which is what Amanda wondered earlier and her self-satisfied husband hadn't.

Clearly exasperated, McCoy flung an arm towards Spock. "I had him banging around inside my head, remember? After he died. I know what he knows."

For some reason, this agitated Kirk and Amanda didn't know why. "Why all the secrecy?" he asked.

"The Vulcan/Romulan hybrids are not themselves a secret, Captain," Spock said. "If they were, you would never have met... any of them."

Amanda shifted in her seat, her annoyance growing in a leap. Her son was pig headed. He wasn't going to even say Saavik's name if he could avoid it. He got that stubbornness from his father, because, of course, he could not have gotten it from her. _One shake_, she thought, _if I give him one good shake, maybe he'll grow up._

"However, some facts about these hybrids _are_ confidential," Spock finished.

"But the only hybrids to go through this disease are Romulan ones, right?" McCoy insisted.

"If not, Doctor, I would have urged more vigilant observation of my son's health."

McCoy looked abashed at Sarek's fatherly concern. "Yeah, of course you would've. Sorry."

"'Where no offense is meant, none can be taken,'" the Ambassador quoted Surak before addressing Spock. "At this point, we must discuss Sorel's statement about the cause of this disease. He would not ask me to come to Vulcan if it did not address the team which first dealt with the Romulan hybrids."

That was exactly the opening Amanda was waiting for. She stood up, commanding her son's attention. Let him try to look over her head again. "Spock, you must come to Vulcan. You were a part of that team; in fact, you formed it. I know you ended your friendship with Saavik--"

"Mother," Spock said evidently pained, "Saavik ended the association. I did not."

She was stunned into silence. Now his reaction this whole time, repeated in Kirk and McCoy's faces, made sense, but it was the only thing that made sense. Her carefully prepared words abandoned her. In fact, she almost stammered. "But I was there when she got your letter. Your father and I were onboard the _Aerfen_ on our way to a diplomatic conference. I saw her read it and when I asked what was wrong, she told me _you _had decided to end it, but she wouldn't tell me your reasons."

"Mother," he said tightly, "are you saying I lie?"

"No, of course not. And you're my son. If for no other reason, I will always take your side. It's only--" She checked to see if Sarek was in agreement with her. He was. "Something's very wrong here. She never could have faked that reaction, never. And it was only an hour or so later that she was told her transfer to the _Enterprise_ was canceled."

Kirk now looked as confused as she felt. "But that's not right. _I _got a notice saying the transfer was canceled because Saavik changed her mind. I had to scramble to find a replacement. And I saw Spock get that letter from her. What the hell is going on?"

Sarek's eyebrows were drawn together into a dark scowl. "I am unsure. I only know Spock and I are needed on Vulcan where we can possibly prevent more from dying."

Spock raised an eyebrow, and Amanda remembered her husband was one of those who had argued vehemently against the Romulan hybrids coming to Vulcan. His change in opinion obviously surprised his son.

"Perhaps," Sarek was saying, "the answer to this second mystery is also there. Regardless, Amanda and I must prepare to leave Earth immediately. Our first priority is honoring Sorel's request."

"Spock--" Amanda started, but got no further. She ached to breach the chasm forming between them, for him to see what she had said was true.

But Spock only addressed his official responsibilities. "Father, naturally I will go with you. My duty is the same as yours. If any of my research with the Romulan hybrids can help, I will be there to give it."

McCoy let his breath out suddenly like he had been holding it. "Ambassador, if Sorel could use an extra set of hands, I'd like to tag along." He watched Spock for a reaction. Amanda saw he had wanted to make this offer from the beginning, but waited, not wanting friction with his friend. "I already know about the hybrids' background and maybe a fresh set of eyes can help."

"I believe I can speak for Sorel in agreeing with you, Doctor. Your service will be of great help. Captain Kirk, I know the theories about the cause of this disease. I will spare the details now for the sake of time, but more than one theory places the cause with the Romulans. We could use someone with your background. However, I understand you may have other plans."

Kirk shook his head. "I want to go, Sarek. Whatever I can do to help."

_And you know Spock prefers the support_, Amanda thought. _Now that he wrongly thinks I have chosen Saavik's side over his._

She reached for him, but he was already leaving the room. Laughter and carefree noises surged through the door, throwing a harsh contrast like a mirror image. People called for the guest of honor, but Kirk looked as loathed to rejoin the party as she felt.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a large group waiting in one of the lounge areas in the Vulcan Science Academy's hospital section. Everyone waited for Sorel while he finished initial tests on Saavik.

Kirk clamped down on his impatience. Waiting: that's all he seemed to do anymore. Retirement wasn't settling well on him, but he made himself think his frustration stemmed from it being early on yet. He missed the action and the challenges of his work. Anyone stepping down from it would. He'd adjust. At least he faced a challenge now and a way to help people.

_If anyone would tell me what the hell was going on._

He forced that down too.

The room was taking on a funereal atmosphere. Amanda was seated across the room from him in gray-blue robes that usually brought out her eyes, but today only emphasized her strain. She listened to Hunter, Saavik's captain from the _Aerfen_. Sarek stood next to Amanda, listening with half his attention while the other half was divided between watching his wife and son. Spock stood against the wall on Sarek's right, as unreadable as when this all began. He avoided any of Kirk's attempts to talk, and spoke only when his professional opinion was needed. McCoy sat in front of him, looking caught between what he wanted to do and what he thought Spock wanted.

At least the room's dark colors of rich brown walls, light furniture, and black stone flooring helped. It made the room more familiar, and with the fourth wall and door gone, they were open off the hallway so they saw what was happening.

Except they didn't relax. He and the others formed a square U around the perimeter of seats. Amanda was at the far end and Kirk directly across on the other, standing with the group from Saavik's ship. But it wasn't the room that bore down on their mood. It was their thoughts.

Just like a funeral, people talked haltingly and only when the silence became unbearable. Amanda had finally asked Hunter how she was since they last met. The captain, like so many people in these situations, ended up sharing stories, especially about her half-Vulcan science officer, but with the tension and the waiting so heavy on them, it felt like they were talking about the dead.

_Hunter_... The _Aerfen_'s exotic captain fooled everyone in the room that seeing him was nothing more than two old friends bumping into each other after a lot of years.

"—so there I am, standing on the bridge with my ship on yellow alert and a Romulan cruiser glaring at me across the Zone. But when your communications officer, even the one on third shift, tells you she's picked up enemy transmissions about your blood on their hands, you're at _least_ on yellow alert."

Kirk enjoyed the shop talk, but he wished it was under better circumstances. Not just the whole situation with Saavik, but the echo of the three times he had broken Hunter's heart. He watched the long eagle feather in her hair bob as she talked and remembered how much it had been a part of their first meeting.

_You're better off focusing on what she's saying now._

"So I'm waiting to see if the Romulans are really preparing an attack when their shields go up. Not a particularly happy thing to see, but _our_ shields were up so they might be reacting to that."

A woman seated three people away on Hunter's left spoke up. "Can I tell the next part?"

Lauren Warfield, Kirk remembered; black hair, wide blue eyes, and petite – really petite – which said something about her abilities to be the _Aerfen_'s weapons officer. Maybe it was her mouth, which she wielded like a machete.

"No," Hunter answered her. "So everyone's shields are up. And Saavik comes running up to the bridge with all the other command officers. I'm biting my lip and looking very captain-like while I decide what to do."

Kirk chuckled. Hunter's ignoring the ghost of their near-marriage was catching. And her bright blue tunic -- _She never was big on uniform regulations_. -- added color in the room. Like her talking... and just being _her_.

"I play back the transmission – again. We only got a snatch of it with drums beating in the background and words like 'blood on our wings', I don't remember now. But Saavik snaps up like she's jabbed by something, and she asks to hear it again. Which we do. I saw she was mulling over something and I told her 'Out with it'. We went over to the comm station – she insisted – and she listens to it by herself for a minute. But I don't have a minute so I push her. She says it sounds familiar, and dashes back to her station before calling me over there. And she shows me what she thinks is the whole transmission. She's reluctant, so I make her say Yes or No. She picks yes and has me transmit a response."

Hunter took a breath before blowing it out in exasperation. "It was a _song_! Something the Romulans play around one of their holidays. My answering transmission was the next stanza after the one we heard. Can you believe that, Jim? I almost go into battle over a song! But what are we expected to do? Know the enemies' dance list for the past few decades? Command thinks so. They put a database together for what they know of the Klingons, the Romulans, and the Gorn. You must have gotten it on the _Enterprise_. Now you know why."

He grinned. "And what happened to you, after you contacted their ship?"

"The Romulans came back, acknowledging my transmission – their commander and I share our exasperation over some kid playing his holiday songs too loud while writing home -- and we all stood down. I commend my third shift communications officer for her zeal in her work -- she _did_ have to bring that snatch of song to my attention -- but suggested she'd be more careful in monitoring enemy transmissions, find out their context before assuming it's official. And here's the last thing. My crew ends up _liking_ this song, and they're bellowing the damned thing around my ship for months!"

Warfield laughed. "Everyone was asking Savage for a clear copy. Was she put out!"

_Savage_? Kirk thought.

Lynne Hoskins, a blonde British woman and the _Aerfen_'s senior communications officer, was shaking her head. She leaned against the wall behind Warfield's chair. "No, if you want a _good_ Savage story, you must tell the one about--"

"The Christmas party!" Lauren smacked the arm of her chair in her enthusiasm.

"Wait a minute," McCoy interrupted. "Do you mean Saavik?"

"Yeah. Anyway, after all we did to try and drag her to it, she shows up for some teeny orphan who actually asked her if she was an elf. She was wearing her field jacket," she explained to Amanda, "it's red and she's got the ears." Warfield used the knuckles on her index fingers to put points on her eartips. Sarek looked appalled. "I thought she'd flip, but she kneels down to talk to the kid and the next thing we know, she's agreeing to come the Institution's Christmas party! She handed out gifts! Damn, if I knew that's all it took, I'd have rounded up orphans a long time ago."

She missed it, but Hunter took in the people in the room. None of them was Saavik's family, and the captain nodded to herself as if a long standing theory was just confirmed.

"No, not that one!" Hoskins complained. "The _best_ Savage story is the Deltan ambassador. He was actually disabled by Deltan standards, if you know what I mean--"

But McCoy was still on the first part. "_Our_ Saavik? The one we're all waiting to see?"

"Yes. So this Deltan is an alien collector--"

Kirk's eyes were already wide from the Savage comment, so they didn't have anywhere to go for this last thing. He knew what the term meant, but that a Deltan could be one of the people who collected sexual experiences with species other than their own… After all, a Deltan's sensual intensity was overwhelming for other species, how could—Kirk understood Hoskins' comment now. This ambassador somehow lost the native ability for pheromone communication, freeing him to select from alien races.

Vulcans were high up on alien collectors' lists since they were so unobtainable. Romulans listed with equally high importance. Saavik, being both, was a tempting target for the jaded sexual predator.

McCoy still couldn't get past the nickname, which was ironic considering all the names he had called Spock over the years. "Hold on! She _lets_ you call her that?"

Hoskins blew out an exasperated breath over being interrupted yet again. "I don't know if you could say she _lets _us--"

"He's right," Hunter interrupted, targeting both her comm and weapons officer with her best command look. "Remember where you are and show respect."

_What kind of ship is Hunter running_? Kirk asked himself. _A halfway house for maverick officers? _He held a ton of esteem for the other captain, but her people made him wonder.

He had been a maverick – he cringed at the past tense – and so was Hunter's first officer, Dannan Stuart, who stared quietly into space from her seat between Warfield and Hunter. But while he and she may be rule breakers, these other women were just… crazy.

_Saavik must be the real odd man out amongst this group_, he thought. It saddened him; this display from the _Aerfen_ officers was official then, not personal.

Dannan's round blue eyes flicked up to him, but her introspection didn't change. She once blamed he and Scotty for her brother, Peter Preston, dying. Something was still chewing at her, but he didn't think it was that.

That left only one other person in the room: Dr. Aakheltok, the Andorian CMO for Hunter. He paid no attention to anything going on, but his antennae swivelled like he sniffed the air.

"Anyway!" Lauren Warfield said. She was speaking to Amanda who at least appeared to be listening. "This ambassador comes onboard with none of us knowing him or what he's like, and he hones in on Saavik. And damned if during the banquet, he doesn't tell us he's an alien collector—you know what that is?"

Amanda absently nodded.

"Yeah, I guess so. You probably got accused of it – you both probably did, didn't you?"

Hunter's stare bored into her junior officer with considerable heat, and Warfield clearly thought she was once more unjustly accused. McCoy spluttered, and Spock and Sarek puffed up in indignation, while Amanda, in contrast, sparkled with amusement and laid a calming, alien hand on her Vulcan husband's arm.

"We did," she said evenly, but her face spoke of inner laughter.

Warfield and Hoskins nodded sagely, but Hunter was done with them. "Enough," she ordered.

Crestfallen, Lauren faced Amanda and mouthed broadly, _Tell you later_. The older woman smiled back.

Kirk grinned at McCoy who shook his head, hard put not to grin himself. Jim Kirk loved Amanda for her beauty, grace, and her intelligence backed by strong common sense. She had a good heart, and he was glad she saw the humor in the situation.

She was looking at Hunter right now pretty intently. "It was kind of you to beam down, Captain."

"Lieutenant Saavik's one of my people."

_Just as I thought_, Kirk said to himself.

"So she is," Amanda commented idly. "Is there anyone onboard who wanted to come down but couldn't?"

"No. No one else asked. Everyone's concerned, of course."

"I'm sure they are. Do you think someone didn't ask but wanted to?"

Hunter frowned and dragged her reply out, obviously confused. "No."

"Anyone special, for instance? If not on the ship, perhaps somewhere else?"

Everyone looked sharply at Amanda then, except for Sarek who went blank and Spock who stiffened.

Hunter glanced at her crew who gazed back just as baffled. "I don't think so..."

"Some people are certainly interested in her," Lynne Hoskins commented.

Warfield snorted. "Oh, if that's what you're talking about, the line's pretty long. But I never saw her interested back." She nudged her best friend. "Right?"

Hoskins nodded and asked Amanda, "Why?"

"Only curious," she answered vaguely. "I'm contacting the rest of Saavik's emergency list. I want to make sure no one is left off of it."

Dannan Stuart stirred for the first time. "Since we're opening up about things, I'd like to ask a question."

"So would I." Aakheltok pushed off the wall and addressed Sarek. "How much longer before Sorel talks with us?"

"We do not know," Sarek answered. "He is not only engaged in Saavik's tests, but in attending the other Vulcan-Romulan hybrids."

Hunter muttered _other hybrids_ under her breath in disbelief.

Aakheltok wasn't appeased. "I still don't understand why it was necessary to bring her here. We were fully capable of treating her on the ship."

"Of course you were," Amanda said diplomatically. "No one questions that. But the hybrid disease is untreatable. We don't even know its cause. Sorel will be here soon to talk to all of us. Hopefully, we'll have more answers then."

The Andorian gazed back and forth from her to Sarek. "We don't have much more time. Our ship is schedule to leave in a few minutes."

Hunter spoke up, her arms folded over her chest. "We're not going anywhere until we see this doctor."

Overhead, a page was made in Vulcan and the universal translator built into the room interpreted it into a few other languages.

Aakheltok's eyes settled on McCoy who looked back, shrugged, and spoke one physician to another. "I know how you feel, but nothing else to do right now except sit tight."

"I actually had a different question." Dannan looked at Spock. "Why are you here?"

Kirk felt Hunter start, but she made no reprimand this time.

Spock responded, "Is there a reason why I should not be here, Commander?"

"Yeah," she said and her indifference turned to accusation. "That damn letter you sent Saavik, cutting her off, ruining her transfer… and now you come around pretending you're concerned?"

McCoy stopped Kirk's explosive reply by making his own. "Just a damned minute!"

But Stuart wasn't done. "I just want an answer. The question really goes to the three of you," and she swept McCoy and Kirk in with a look.

Kirk paused to reign in his temper, and Hunter spoke in that beat.

"I got to admit, Jim, I couldn't believe it either. Especially after the first time Saavik was supposed to come to you and Command canceled it. This last one seemed a sure thing. I was all ready to call you on the mat for stealing my officer, and then I got your cancellation order. Dumbfounded me. I couldn't believe you broke your word over something like that."

Was it his imagination that heard an emphasis on her saying _you broke your word_?

"And, Jim, since we've always been honest with each other, I didn't appreciate it that you left it up to me to break the news to her."

"I did _not_ send a cancellation order! Saavik sent one to us!"

Stuart plainly thought he was lying, but Hunter was more confused than ever. "Jim, I saw your order."

"And we saw Saavik get that letter." Dannan's animosity was all the worse for the quiet, contained way she displayed it. Her captain had tempered her well. Too well.

"She's right." Hunter gave a worried shake of her head. "Saavik's Vulcan and she's hard to read, but we saw how much that letter hit her. She looked like someone with a belly wound."

She was looking at him and Stuart's back was to Spock, so they didn't see the subtle, tight line along his jaw. Kirk wondered if they'd recognize it anyway. Amanda and Sarek did, and they watched their son.

"Too many people saw both sides get these orders," Kirk said. "Neither of us has a reason to lie."

"Oh really?" Dannan asked and looked back over her shoulder to Spock.

Tight lipped, Kirk struggled for control himself. "Yes, really. What I don't understand is how or why anyone else would?" He chewed on the inside of his bottom lip. "Hunter, who authorized that transfer order? The one I supposedly put through?"

He was just fishing, giving himself time. With Saavik's first transfer, he was told about its cancellation from a friend: someone else had already been assigned to _Enterprise_ to replace Sulu -- Saavik had to stay put. He never got an official nullifying order. The note about this second transfer termination was just as informally done, Saavik saying she no longer wanted it.

But when Hunter started to answer, stopped, and her face lit with dawning comprehension, he knew they finally had something.

"Admiral Cartwright."

"Cartwright!" He was staring at McCoy, and then he glanced from the top of his eyes at Spock. The wheels turned in all their minds, and he knew the Vulcan was already at a conclusion the rest only glimpsed. "This is starting to make sense. He needed to get one of his people on board. Saavik was about to fill that spot, so he removes her."

"The conspiracy?" McCoy asked in disbelief. "That far back?"

Kirk questioned Spock. "When did you first contact the Klingons about an alliance?"

Spock said nothing, but his expression spoke volumes. At least to Kirk.

"And the Intelligence Division discovers that contact and one of the people they tell is Cartwright. So, just in case, he starts preparing a plan."

"But what about the letter?" Stuart insisted. "Are you saying Cartwright sent that?"

"No," Kirk said slowly. "I don't think he had the expertise, and it'd take an expert to break into the security around the personal mail systems. Plus set the return path so when anyone checked, it was correct. And I _think_--" but he wouldn't ask, "—that the letters mentioned personal details. Things Cartwright didn't know." He was still watching Spock, not wanting to say this next part. "Could Valeris do it?"

The hesitation was just long enough for him to notice it. "Yes."

Kirk felt the word cut his friend. All the worse because Valeris most likely learned the ability under Spock's tutelage. "Would she know the details for the letters?"

"Having not seen Saavik's, I cannot answer for it. But for mine--" Spock sounded so beaten. "I do not see how she knew. However--"

Jim finished for him. "She was close enough that she could have found out."

Spock nodded.

Kirk stayed put, knowing his best friend didn't want any gesture pointing out his pain. But did he see how Sarek took a step closer, just hovering nearby as a support? Or how Amanda swallowed against tears?

McCoy looked as helpless as Kirk felt. With nothing to say to Spock, he burst out, "But why? If Cartwright's got that spot reserved for Valeris already, why is doing anything else necessary?"

He waited, but when the Vulcan stayed quiet, he answered. "Because it's like I just said, Bones. It wasn't just about getting on _Enterprise_, it was about getting close to Spock – close enough to watch his process on the Klingons, close enough that he trusts her to tell her things. Close enough so that we see it and trust her too. Plus, there's the personal side." He discerned Spock's slight tensing, but he wasn't talking about that meaning of the word personal. "Spock was picking the _Enterprise_'s next science officer and Valeris wanted that posting."

"And all that means removing Saavik?" Lauren Warfield was incredulous. "Wasn't this Valeris close already?"

Spock shook his head. Kirk bit down on the sharp words for Stuart and the others to let up, that Saavik was not the only one injured by what had happened.

Aakheltok made a noise behind them, his antennae straightening, and Kirk's head snapped up at the sound of approaching footsteps. Sorel.

With him was a Vulcan woman also in brown healer robes. Sorel's dark hair always had fewer grays than Sarek's, but then he hadn't lived through such things as his son dying and being reborn. His black eyes took in everyone and addressed them gravely. "I apologize for your wait."

"How is Lieutenant Saavik?" Hunter asked immediately.

"Doing well under the circumstances. My compliments to your doctor."

"I'm not looking for compliments -- although I appreciate the opinion of someone with your reputation." Aakheltok's antennae swivelled forward. "I want to know about my patient."

Sorel's eyebrows arched as if surprised. Kirk wondered. He was too young to know the years when Vulcan and Andor were bitter enemies, so was Aakheltok. But Sorel and Sarek grew up in those days; was it surprising to them to see an Andorian concerned for a Vulcan?

Sorel answered, "We are transporting her soon to a private room. She will enter healing sleep for a day to mend the remaining damage from the fall."

The Andorian physician looked confused. "You ordered she not go into healing sleep."

Sorel nodded. "To avoid the risk of it removing the cause of Phase I. We completed the tests and will run more for comparison after she is awake."

"Is she asleep now?" Stuart asked.

"No, however because of her physical condition including Phase I, she does lapse into unconsciousness. Amanda, you asked to see her?"

She nodded, and Kirk heard Hoskins make a displeased sound. Sorel heard it as well and paused, looking over the _Aerfen_ crew. "We will bring her here shortly, but we can allow five minutes at most."

At their evident relief, Kirk knew the Vulcan healer had diagnosed them all correctly. But that meant Saavik was coming here. Again he looked at Spock. Confusion and conflict warred over his expression, and he did what he always did in such situations. His face became a mask.

Sorel explained, "We are only waiting for a room to be prepared in the wing where the other patients are."

McCoy cleared his throat. "Sorel, what can you tell us about this disease?"

The healer's unreadable onyx eyes showed nothing. His emotional controls were stronger than a majority of other Vulcans, necessary because of his high psi abilities essential to a healer. But something in his voice showed a difference from when he spoke impersonally before. "Leonard, Sarek sent me your message from Earth. Your offer of service honors us. Let me introduce Healer Tu'ong, one of our leading geneticists."

"Genetics?"

Tu'ong nodded. "For reasons regarding the disease's cause. Some theories speculate it is embedded into the hybrids' genes."

"Like a time bomb?"

She nodded again.

"Put there by who?" Aakheltok asked.

"We are unsure. Possibly the Romulans."

"All our information is collated in these reports." Sorel handed one to McCoy and the other to Aakheltok. "In summary, you will see Phase I includes the symptoms you already know. After it, the patient enters a period of good health for 5 to 10 days. Phase II then begins."

McCoy's expression of shock made Kirk hurry to read over his shoulder. _Phase II symptoms: aggression, loss of emotional control, increased sexual drive--_

Alarms went off stridently in Kirk's head. His eyes jerked to McCoy who nodded, and he caught what he had missed before: the understated telltales in Sarek and Spock in discussing this stage of the disease. Now he knew why Amanda asked if any lovers were in Saavik's life.

He almost shouted, "You said Phase II was non-lethal."

"It is," Sorel replied.

"But--"

"_Phase II_ is not lethal," Sorel stressed and shut his mouth firmly.

_Meaning it might look like pon farr, but it's not_.

"What happens next?" Stuart asked. She and the others were crowded around the Andorian, doing what Kirk was doing.

Hunter looked back at him, and he knew she understood. Starfleet captains were told discreetly: _if a Vulcan is acting on certain symptoms and demanding to go home, get them home! And keep your mouth shut._ But gauging by her crew's expressions, they didn't know about pon farr, which was surprising in Aakheltok's case. Chief medical officers knew as much as starship captains... unless Vulcans kept it silent from Andorian doctors? Or did Aakheltok not see it -- or he did see it, but kept his reaction quiet?

"The disease goes into remission for thirteen months, and then the patient enters Phase III." Sorel's expression tightened minutely. "Phase III _is_ fatal. The patient's body no longer processes nutrients from ingested food. The same is true for liquids. The patient eventually dies from starvation and dehydration."

Silence fell over them. Hunter's communicator shattered it by signaling for attention, the soft chime sounding shrill in the tension. She whispered hurried instructions to her ship, and snapped the communicator closed. She glanced at her people. "Not yet."

Kirk felt that disassociation with the outside world so common in these situations. Surprising to remember it was daylight outside this dark colored room, and sad to know a ship didn't wait in orbit for him, wouldn't call him with a reminder that challenges waited _out there_.

But if he was Hunter and not staying with a fallen crewmember, his frustration would pound in his veins, and he'd envy the people facing the challenge here. The way Hunter looked at him now.

McCoy asked, "How long for Phase III?"

"It varies," Tu'ong said. "Typically, one month."

Kirk spoke. "And five died already?"

"Six," Sorel corrected. "We lost one this morning."

Behind him, Amanda closed her eyes.

"But you can cure this, right?" Hoskins looked back and forth between the two Vulcan healers.

"We believe so," he said. "Clearly, we are unsuccessful so far."

Another pall fell over them into which Dannan Stuart asked uncertainly, "You said Saavik will be all right between the phases. Can she come back to the ship?"

"If she chose to return to work--"

Lauren Warfield snorted. "You don't know Saavik, do you?"

Thankfully, Sorel took that well. "Just so."

"So she comes back to us after Phase I?" Stuart asked. "When she enters the second stage, I'm sure Dr. Aakheltok can take care of her."

"We prefer she stays on Vulcan until after Phase II, due to the nature of the symptoms. After which--"

Hunter interrupted. "She comes _back_ to _us_." It was not a question.

Tu'ong glanced over to Sorel. He nodded. "If Saavik so chooses."

In the next instant, his head moved in reaction to some sound. "They're bringing her now. Remember we asked you to refrain from loud noises or too many speaking at one time. Also, due to our females' more sensitive sense of smell, no one was to wear perfume, cologne, or other strong scents. In her current condition, the fumes and the noise are aggravating to her system."

Tu'ong's nose suddenly twitched, and she looked sharply in Amanda's direction. "You are wearing a fragrance."

"Barely. I forgot your instructions this morning, and washed it off as soon as I remembered."

The Vulcan woman hesitated, breathing deeply, before nodding to Sorel. "It is faint. I was not conscious of it until you repeated the direction."

He dimmed the lights while Kirk shook his head to himself in admiration. Amanda never forgot the instructions. She just ensured that no matter what, Saavik would know she was here.

Kirk got a brief glimpse as Sorel brought in the gurney. Saavik's eyes were closed as she lay almost too still. She was dressed in light gray hospital fatigues, a sheet pulled up to her waist. None of the injuries showed any longer, and her color was only slightly pale, but she looked fragile and extremely vulnerable. Or did he think that because he knew of the disease eating at her?

The _Aerfen_ officers gathered tightly around the gurney. With all that had happened, he missed how wrong he was earlier. They felt _very_ personally about this. Saavik was one of them.

Stuart was right in front of him. He heard her call softly, "Hey."

Saavik's eyes fluttered, and she blinked in the light. Through a gap between their shoulders, he saw her eyes roll dizzily before focusing on Stuart. Her breathing eased as she took in the quiet hellos from the rest of the crew, Hunter reaching out to pat one covered foot.

He was surprised. He didn't expect to feel so shut out, but he stood outside their circle and felt there was no place for anyone but them. He combated this sense by remembering how very much Saavik had wanted back on the _Enterprise_, and how very much they had wanted her back.

He glanced sharply at the others. McCoy's fists were balled up like he held himself back from pushing in. And Spock – Spock wore a Vulcan's look of shock. But from seeing Saavik like this or from seeing her at all?

On noticing her captain, she struggled as if trying to rise.

"Belay that!" Hunter ordered.

Warfield leaned on the gurney at one bottom corner. "You'll be fine, you know."

"You've come through worse," Hoskins said, but Aakheltok was speaking on top of her while Stuart asked if she needed anything. Saavik's eyes crinkled as if wincing, and Hunter held a hand out, signaling quiet.

"They said you can come back when you're well in a few weeks," Stuart finally said. Her throat was working against a lump, which Saavik saw and look concerned over.

"Stay strong until then," Hoskins said.

"Yeah, don't let us down," Warfield added.

Hunter's communicator chirped again. She looked around her group. "We have to answer this one."

Aakheltok leaned over from the end. "Do you need anything?"

Saavik gave her head a tiny shake. Kirk saw her hands touch the gurney. Even that slight shake aggravated her vertigo.

Hunter came around to stand at her left arm. "This is an order." She put a hand on one shoulder. "Come back."

Saavik blinked slowly in response.

The five officers pulled reluctantly away, Stuart last. Saavik watched them leave until they were out of sight. Then her eyes closed slowly.

Sorel looked at those remaining, wondering if anyone else had something to say. Kirk wanted to go to the gurney and Amanda was already on her feet, but they were all held back by one thing. What would Spock's reaction be?

Saavik's nostrils abruptly flared, picking up Amanda's perfume. Her head lolled to that side as she forced her eyes open. And saw Spock instead.

Whatever remaining idea Kirk had about Saavik sending that letter was blown away. Her eyes screamed raw pain bleeding into grief, and then, betrayal.

Spock took a step towards her.

Her eyes shut and she fell back, unconscious.


	3. Chapter 3

Orderlies took Saavik away to her room, but her expression on seeing Spock lingered over everyone after she was gone. McCoy felt like a traitor for no one giving her some word of comfort while they clustered around Spock, keeping their balance on the eggshells around him. So taken aback by his blundering step to her and what had caused it, forgetting in that one second how their silence must have looked to her.

McCoy cleared his throat. "Sorel, if you can spare a minute to brief me, I'd like to start right away."

The healer nodded. "If you will come with me, I will take you to the ward where we keep the Phase III patients." He looked at Spock. "Do you wish to see them? Sarek thought you might."

When he spoke, Spock's voice was hoarse, or at least McCoy thought so. That expression from Saavik had hit hard. "Of course. Your briefing will help those of us dealing with the non-medical details of the disease."

That meant Kirk was coming too, which was a relief to McCoy. He saw how the secrecy was killing Jim.

Amanda walked briskly to keep up with everyone else's longer legs. It said something that even the Vulcans marched with rapid steps. "Sorel, Saavik has a friend, Rrelthiz, on her emergency contact list. She's a Carreon doctor, a biologist. I thought of contacting her and asking for her help. With your permission."

Spock's face tightened and only McCoy knew why. That mission, where they had first met Rrelthiz.

But he gave the Vulcan credit for putting it aside to give his opinion on the important matter at hand. "I know her – or rather, I did. Dr. Rrelthiz knows a great deal about biological agents mutated into viruses -- what the Carreons call virbac organisms. She may give us a new insight."

Sorel's steps hesitated and then regain their briskness. But the hesitation in so controlled a Vulcan spoke volumes. "The background on the hybrids is still confidential. You know this as well as I do. I understand Leonard's knowledge--"

McCoy saw Kirk shoot him a look and held the urge back to kick his former captain. Jim was his best friend and a good man, but he was capable of a petulance and bad temper rivaling a teething toddler.

"— but as for anyone else..."

"Rrelthiz already knows some of the background," Amanda explained. "Saavik spoke of a few details to her. Surely Rrelthiz can work on the project without being told anything else? We can tell her its classified beyond her security access."

Tu'ong leaned into Sorel and they held an intense, whispered conversation even as they kept sweeping the others through the hospital corridors. The number of patient rooms they passed dwindled as they seemed to head for a more isolated area. Sorel finally nodded while Tu'ong emphatically shook her head. He held up a hand and spoke to Amanda. "Agreed. As we are quite possibly dealing with a biological agent, and as the Carreon healer knows certain facts already, by all means contact her. However, she must _not_ be given any further details regarding the hybrids' past."

"I'm sure she'll agree. I'll contact her now." Amanda stopped, touched Sarek's hand briefly, and disappeared down a different corridor.

Sorel escorted everyone else to the Vulcan/Romulans' ward. McCoy observed a separate nurses station just for this area, with one corridor leading to labs and another for patient rooms currently empty. His party took a third corridor where double doors led to the ward. Other rooms spread out after it. The hospital was giving the medical team a great deal of resources to combat the disease, he was glad to see.

The ward was a very large room with two columns of beds forming row after row. Privacy walls, to surround the patient's bed giving them a solitary room, could jut forth from the wards' main walls, but were currently retracted as healers and nurses worked on the patients. So it was a startling scene that greeted McCoy and the others.

The worst of the twenty-three hybrids were gaunt, cheeks starting to cave in, and their eyes sinking into their faces. Those early in the phase sat up; the more advanced cases weakly lay in their beds and turned their heads to the strangers in the doorway; the rest could not manage even this. But the ones who turned recognized Spock, and McCoy saw their eyes brighten. Their savior was here.

Controlling his reaction to the horrific sight, Spock moved down the rows of beds with McCoy at his back, and Kirk and Sarek at his shoulders. He stopped to murmur a few words to them. McCoy grabbed medical charts each time, but darted his glance up at the reticent or weak words aimed at Spock.

"You will not remember me, sir," the first hybrid said. "It has been years. I am Vi'hai."

Spock nodded. "I remember you, Vi'hai."

"You honor me, sir. We were all gratified when we heard of your arrival. You are staying for fourteen days, correct?"

McCoy quailed at the reminder that Starfleet only spared he and Spock for two weeks. How could he find a cure in two weeks when people like Sorel hadn't?

"If you could, sir, that is my wife, Pekhi." Vi'hai sat forward to gesture to the patient in the next bed. His bondmate appeared to be sleeping, but McCoy expertly judged the increased signs of starvation and dehydration. "She entered Phase III earlier than I did. If you could speak with her, she will hear you. It would mean a great deal to her."

Like an explosion of image and sound, McCoy saw a much younger face, just cleaned, scabbed and scarred, and hair freshly cut, staring into a computer camera. He heard Spock's voice in his head listing the details for the child's record. _Vi'hai: approximately 8 years of age, male. Broken arm incorrectly healed. Infection of the calcaneus of the_ _right foot, beginning as a deep laceration which has infected the bone. Shows signs of rape._

_Pekhi: approximately 13 years of age, female. Laceration to the scalp around to the forehead. Shows signs of rape._

He hated having these memories, because it was unfair that he did when he was never given permission for it. Would he ever recover from having Spock's katra banging between his ears?

And what was this doing to Spock who must be reliving the same memories?

Spock's hands folded behind his back and they clasped together hard. "Of course, and my congratulations on your marriage, Vi'hai."

The other nodded in thanks, but said nothing as he took in the two humans. That's when it hit McCoy that Vi'hai had spoke in English for their sakes.

"Allow me to introduce my companions, Captain James T. Kirk and Dr. Leonard McCoy of Earth. They have come to assist myself and Sorel. You already know my father, Sarek."

Kirk murmured a hello and McCoy stumbled out something. What to say? No standard Vulcan greeting worked. How could he possibly wish peace, prosperity, or a long life when Vi'hai knew his future held none of these things?

Spock stepped over to Pekhi's bedside and spoke quietly to her. The sleeping woman didn't rouse or show any reaction. Her husband leaned over and rattled off something in Vulcan, but Spock stopped him.

"It is not necessary. Do not disturb her."

"Nonsense!" another voice spoke from behind them. "Pekhi prefers to be disturbed."

A gray haired Vulcan male moved to the foot of Vi'hai's bed with eyes that contained more humor than McCoy ever saw before in any Vulcan. He slid in next to Spock and addressed the sleeping woman. "Attend me, Pekhi. You are too stubborn to allow sleep to control you. The paint fumes alone must drive you to awaken."

McCoy turned with Kirk to finally notice one of the hybrids, a male in a patient's tunic and pants, painting the beginnings of a mural over the last bed on the right hand side of the room. Another male sat on the next bed watching.

"Micar," Sarek identified.

_Micar_, McCoy's memory repeated, _approximately fourteen, male. Missing the middle finger on the left hand…_

And, the doctor remembered with a sickened rush, a rapist. An adolescent with a maturing sexual drive that had preyed on the other hybrids on Hellguard, not knowing why he did it or that it was wrong. And here he was with his former victims. How did these people live with each other?

But the elder Vulcan said, "As if I did not recognize him. I see we are to have a fresco decorating the ward. Interesting. I look forward to its completion." He spoke to McCoy and Kirk. "My apologies, gentlemen, for not introducing myself. My name is--"

"Salok," Pekhi's weak voice called from her bed. Her short hair pressed close to her finely boned head, and her large doe eyes quivered open.

"Ah yes," he answered, and returned to her side. "There you are. You remember Spock."

She carefully dipped her head, reaching only a millimeter, in a bow. He spoke to her in Vulcan, and she answered with a word or two. She then asked Salok something, and he replied in his same light, even tones.

Sarek whispered to Kirk and McCoy. "She remembers he was a pediatrician, and asks if he now treats adults as well."

"Does he?" Kirk asked.

Sarek shook his head. "However, he was the doctor on the rescue team. Sorel asked him for his assistance. He will check his records, comparing their tests as adults to the ones made when they were children. Perhaps he will find the new element triggering the disease."

An alarm sounded down the aisle, and McCoy viewed a cluster of people at the far end. Vulcans, some in medical dress and some not, hovered over a patient as Sorel and Tu'ong hurried to join them. He got a brief glimpse of the patient, a breathing skeleton seizing for air and life, and then a nurse hit the controls for the privacy walls.

Salok spoke in a hushed tone. "Cavan."

Automatically, the thought came to McCoy just as it had with the others: _Cavan, approximately six years of age, male_. He shut it off with a silent curse.

Micar left his painting to stand midway in the aisle. Like all the others, he stared at that enclosed bed; but unlike the others, he twisted around and addressed the patients in quiet authority. "We can do nothing for Cavan. His family is with him as are the healers. Go back to your business." And setting an example, he returned to his mural.

_His family._ A sudden reminder that these were the hybrids that took the genetic scan to find their Vulcan families.

Unlike Saavik who was lying in her room alone.

_Goddammit, I should've said something to her!_

"Micar has become quite the leader," Salok noted.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "He has also become quite self-possessed. Interesting."

"In one with such a deprived childhood or in one with less years of training?"

"Both, Salok."

A sound from the end of the aisle signaled people were leaving Cavan's bed, and even though it was done discreetly through the far door, McCoy saw a gurney exit with the young man's body. The family and medical staff provided a shield, so hopefully none of the other hybrids observed it, but one woman happened to bow her head, rubbing at her brow, giving McCoy his peek.

"Oh god," Kirk said quietly.

McCoy bet Jim didn't even know he spoke out loud. As for himself, he was watching that Vulcan woman steady herself and realized what had happened.

_She has Cavan's katra_.

He bet she was better off than he and Spock had been. At least Cavan's family had time to prepare.

Sorel made his way to them, his face carefully guarded, and they met him halfway, dropping their voices.

"Now we have lost seven," he said.

_And he blames himself for every one of them_, McCoy thought, speaking from experience.

"The families," Spock asked, "are they all so supportive?"

Sarek's voice was grim. "Not all."

_So some still blame these kids for being born._ For every hybrid, one Vulcan was raped, forced to watch the child born, and then died either by Romulan hands or by Hellguard's harsh life. Each Vulcan had a family back home, and not everybody could forgive the living symbol for what had happened.

Sorel gestured to a few other Vulcans coming up the aisle. "The rest of our team. The head nurse, T'Ahiyya."

A woman McCoy's height with short hair of dark ringlets, caramel colored skin, and large almond shaped eyes of amber greeted them, but her thoughts were clearly with the departed Cavan.

"Healer Sa'd..." a tall, slim built Vulcan male with black skin, "and Healer Srre, one of our most gifted medical students."

"You have a helluva assignment, Srre," McCoy said.

Shorter than him, Srre responded solemnly, his slate gray eyes almost mournful. "I requested it. My brother, Mal'Shik, was a patient. He was the first to die from Phase III."

McCoy mentally kicked himself out to the spaceport while echoing Kirk's, "I'm sorry for your loss." He struggled to say something without sticking his foot in his mouth again. "Sorel, why don't I make the rounds with someone else in the staff, then I can meet with you about any questions I still have."

"The entire team meets at the end of every afternoon to keep each other abreast on all information. In the meantime, take T'Ahiyya with you and Salok. You will find her a significant resource."

"My pleasure, ma'am," he said courteously, and like all other Vulcans he ever addressed with such an emotional statement, she gave him a look of bemusement.

"I believe I am better suited elsewhere," Sarek said. "I will compile the current theories on a third party responsible for creating this disease, in the event it is not naturally caused by the environment. Captain Kirk, if you would assist?"

Kirk smiled slightly, and McCoy knew only he and Spock saw the sadness there. "Jim, please. Calling me captain is a bit improper now. And I'd be happy to help. The sooner the better, just in case."

"Good. Spock?"

His son gazed over the ward at all the hybrids he hadn't spoke with and who gave him expectant glances. "I will stay with Salok and Dr. McCoy."

They began their rounds, missing no one. A couple of times, one hybrid told Spock to stop at the next bed explaining the person in it was not sleeping, but could not move to let him know. These people, it was left unsaid, would be the next to die.

These Salok touched lightly on the forehead, and Spock murmured what message he could manage, while McCoy tried to shut those voices out of his head.

_Zytka, approximately thirteen, female._

_Sohan, approximately ten, male._

Some asked that they repeat his or her name, waiting intently and then relaxing back on their pillows after they had. These, Salok told them privately, were the ones whose families did not come.

_And they want someone to remember them, to know their names after they're gone_, a recall whispered to McCoy.

_Jalon, approximately five, female._

_Nizar, approximately fifteen, male._

A doctor was meant to maintain a distance from his or her patients. A fact McCoy always had a problem with. How the hell could he do it now when he looked at the dying adult and saw the rescued child?

At last, they finished the rounds, and he carried a full padd of notes from T'Ahiyya. Even she looked drained from the experience. He grabbed what records he could at a nearby computer station, and asked Salok if he could look in while the pediatrician did his comparison. The nurse informed them the afternoon meeting started in one hour, and Spock said he would join his father and Kirk in Sarek's office.

McCoy's mind already reeled with the idea of finding a needle in the haystack of data. "Salok, humans and a few other species I know have diseases where the body stops processing nutrients. Is this new for Vulcans?"

"No. Unfortunately, this disease does not respond to our treatments."

McCoy grimaced. "Figured it was like that."

"It makes our purpose twofold: to find a cure for Phase III so we may save the immediately threatened lives, and cure the whole disease before Saavik, and possibly the offworld hybrids, reach the final stage."

They began the painstaking work of comparing each test – blood, tissue, bone scans, neural scans, on and on – per individual, first as a child and then as an adult. The hour sped by with only a minuscule fraction of the work done.

Salok looked up from the station. "Leonard, go to the meeting. Once I am complete with this analysis, I am no longer a member of the team. You are. I will carry on here."

"All right, but I'll be back afterwards to help you get through this. Is there any pair of hands we can steal?"

"The reference is interesting, and if I understand it as an idiom, I have called a few associates. They will arrive after they completed their appointments."

"Then maybe we can get through this stuff by tomorrow."

"Perhaps."

He literally ran down the hallways, pounding through the medical complex half by memory, half by Salok's directions. He skidded to a stop near Sorel's door, ignored the stares around him, and entered the meeting in a normal pace.

If it were anyone but Vulcans in the room, he'd sum up their mood with one word: glum.

"Seven deaths," Sorel was saying. "And we face more immediately if we cannot halt the disease's progress. Saavik entering Phase I is a setback. We all thought her spared. However, our theories regarding an element in our environment as a cause may still hold true since she is exposed, albeit in a more limited capacity. If so, the three hybrids coming to the orbital station may be uninfected, and we know three at least will live." The somber thought hung in the air. "What are our current strategies?"

McCoy reported on his and Salok's process, what little of it was made, and the help coming tonight.

Tu'ong also created a team for the genetic scans and reported their focus was on the Phase III patients first, working back towards Phase I.

"Is Saavik getting treatment?" McCoy asked.

Srre answered that her injuries from the _Aerfen_ were being treated, but no cure was ever found for Phase I. "However, she will pass through it normally even without therapy."

"And I have a note from Sarek," Sorel added, "that James Kirk and he arranged for Healer Rrelthiz to arrive in approximately three days."

McCoy saw a few sideways glances aimed surreptitiously his way. Best deal with it up front. "Listen, I'm sure it's crossed a few minds that this is a Vulcan matter best left up to Vulcans. Especially under the circumstances surrounding the families involved. Maybe it's true that offworlders should stay out of this. But one of _my_ Vulcans is infected -- if you'll excuse the expression and my sentamental nature -- and because of Spock's death, I have his memories, which means I know every patient involved. And like everyone else in this room, I'm a physician. This is what we do. So does Rrelthiz. I met her, and the Carreons have as strong a sense of honor as all of you. She doesn't know as much background as I do, but what we know, we keep to ourselves."

"In addition, their experience," Sorel said, "and the fact they are offworlders give Leonard and the forthcoming Carreon doctor fresh perspectives. We are honored to have them."

McCoy was embarrassed by his speech, but happy to see approving nods around the room.

The rest of the meeting dealt with immediate treatment plans, no matter how far flung. Taking the patients offworld, removing the environmental cause if it existed… Investigating flushing the system with IVs in the hope some nutrients seeped through, or would it be too much…?

"What about the system you and Daniel created, Sorel? Can it help at all?" McCoy asked.

"The system was designed for extensive neural regeneration. We do not know if we are dealing with a neural cause."

…Transfusions from the patient families in the case of the Phase III ward and from a compatible donor for Saavik…

That lead to the idea of Saavik being forced into a genetic scan to find her relations. "After all," Sa'd proposed, "if treatment depends on a familial match, her health must take precedent."

McCoy imagined what Saavik's reaction to _that_ would be and opened his mouth to answer. Tu'ong beat him to it.

"Saavik is on record for refusing the scan more than once. I suggest we wait to see if such a match is necessary, and propose it to her later, after we see if a non-familial donor will not do."

McCoy took a deep breath. He hated thinking about the explosion Saavik would set off, but if her life was on the line, he'd volunteer to be one of the ten people it'd take to sit on her and force the scan.

"Regarding this point, I believe we are discounting the legalities," Srre said. "As a child, Saavik was a ward of the planet even while living offworld. The authority to make this decision was ours. However, as she is now an adult, do we still have the authority to disregard her decision against the genetic scan?"

"You raise an interesting point," Sorel answered. "However, Tu'ong is correct. We will not focus on this issue until the need arises."

Plans for attacking the huge amount of research as fast as possible filled the rest of the meeting, and armed with treatment actions, the mood was better. At least, McCoy counted _his _mood as better. The Vulcans, of course, had no mood. He waited for the majority to leave, wanting to speak briefly with Sorel.

He didn't get a chance. A short, round human man burst through the door robust with energy: Daniel Corrigan, Sorel's partner for decades, making up the team responsible for the first healthy birth of a Vulcan/Human hybrid: Spock. "There you are, Sorel! I am under strict orders from your wife to get you home before you collapse."

"A number of facts are in error with your statement, Daniel. First, T'Kar never would suggest such a thing. Second, I do not collapse."

"Okay, _my_ wife -- your daughter -- insists I drag you away. Oh, all right, no one said anything, but they gave me those _looks_. Do not get me in trouble with them. How long have you been at this? The past two hundred and sixteen hours with no break? You're going home, you're going to eat a decent meal, and you're going to get some rest for a few hours."

"And how," Sorel asked, "do you suggest I do this with a clear mind when I have patients dying of malnutrition?"

"Because it's the logical thing to do. Bow to it, and – Leonard! Damn, I heard you got in!"

McCoy's hand was pumped enthusiastically to say the least, and the other man's attitude lightened his own more. "Good to see you, Daniel. How've you been?"

"Good. And as a human in this bunch, I can say selfishly that I'm glad this disease doesn't affect my kids. Don't think Amanda and Sarek aren't thinking the same thing."

McCoy grinned. "I know better."

"Look, let me haul Sorel out of here, and I'll come back to give a hand wherever I can. I think I know a few things about hybrid genetics. Now, what do you say, Sorel? I'm your brother, your partner, and – for that matter – your son-in-law. You know me too well to think you can blow me off."

Quite true. Sorel stood up from his desk, following Daniel to the door.

"Uh, one thing." McCoy stopped them. "I'd like to see Saavik."

"Return to the ward," Sorel instructed. "Her room is down the hall, three doors on the left, but she is in healing sleep."

"I won't stay long. I just want to check on her."

"Of course."

There was a time when Sorel thought such actions were illogical. That was until his first wife, T'Zan, was struck ill and he had visited her whenever he could.

McCoy found the proper room and walked in quietly. He should have guessed it, but he was still surprised to see Amanda already there, standing by Saavik and just watching her. She looked up as he entered and gave him a small smile in greeting.

He crossed to the bed and checked the readouts on the board. He once memorized enough of the Vulcan alphabet to do this much. He glanced down at Saavik who was serenely still.

"She can hear you, Leonard."

He knew that, but he wasn't sure what to say except that he wanted to say _something_, anything.

Amanda brushed the hair away from Saavik's eyes and rescued him. "Dr. McCoy's here to see you, Saavik. He's joined the team to find a cure."

"And we're going to find one," he said emphatically. "We're starting treatments for Phase III that we feel positive about. They'll at least slow down the disease's progress."

And then he got tongue tied again. He forcefully pressed down Spock's memories of Saavik; he wouldn't violate those, he refused. Not the first one where she killed a hybrid boy about to murder Spock, and then held him at bay by knifepoint from entering the mountains while she lay claim to the stars themselves. Not the barely civilized Saavik that he left behind for _Enterprise_. Not all the questions in all the letters or the very rare face to face meetings until Saavik was grown and in the Academy, leading the ship back to her hellish homeworld because of a memory. Not the moment when she stood brave, strong, and in fear for Rrelthiz's life where Spock clasped her shoulder and was hit by her presence like a thunder clap, the reverberating explosion at his core with its eddying waves spreading out, intoxicating him with the thought that Saavik was a woman.

McCoy just as resolutely repressed his own memory of Spock, after years of struggling to regain his memories of her, getting that letter supposedly from Saavik, and the destruction it wrought.

The doctor stood there for a minute longer before Amanda patted the still hand near her. "We'll leave you to rest."

They left quietly, and Amanda spoke in the corridor without looking at him. "Leonard, please. Don't tell Spock I was here. He wouldn't..."

He squeezed her hand. "I know. But maybe we're getting near to fixing that."

She sighed deeply. "I hope so."

"Amanda, do you think Valeris sent those letters?"

"Do I think she's capable of it? Yes. And Spock said she could find out the details for his. I don't suppose..."

He shook his head. "I never read it, so I don't know what was in it. But I think I can guess."

"Hmm... I don't know what was in either of them. But Valeris was one of Saavik's strays--"

He smiled at her word for a person in need that she aided. But apparently Saavik was the one to take in Valeris.

"—and they were friends for awhile. I suppose Valeris learned something." She paused sadly. "I never trusted her, but I eventually thought it just a personality clash between us, or a matter of preference for me. I wish..."

"We all do."

She looked back at Saavik's door. "This disease – it's going to be a long battle, isn't it, Leonard?"

* * *

Elsewhere, a dark figure sat in a still darker room, no illumination breaking the shadows except for the computer displays surrounding the chair. The communications between Vulcan and other places revealed the details of another healer's coming arrival. And twenty-six half-breeds still alive. Too many, far too many. Not good.

But Saavik was finally downed, a difficult challenge getting that one, but completed. And here another communiqué: the three breeds living off the Vulcan path were scheduled for arrival at the orbital station. Once those three were in hand, the final countdown began.

Soon, soon.


	4. Chapter 4

Kirk stood useless and frustrated in the garden at Spock's home. He was tired of the feelings, and angry at himself for having them at all when so many others faced worse than he did.

But that didn't change how he felt. Since he was not a doctor, he was no help in finding a cure for the disease, and since he wasn't Spock or Sarek, he no longer dealt with finding outside sources for it. His earlier work with the Ambassador ended in aggravation three days ago because of the classified background information. _And I'm no help when I can't know the why behind all this._

Which led to the different annoyance that McCoy and Spock had once more kept secrets from him. _I thought we were past that -- after Sybok. _Confidential details, of course, were one thing -- he understood that -- but his closest friends kept him dumb to the fact that the hybrids, outside of Saavik, existed at all, and the fact that they were warned of the disease years ago.

He heard faint sounds from inside the house and made out the grandfather clock's soft, deep caroling. He spared another glance at Vulcan's setting sun and the diminishing aura of heat on the desert, all framed by his spot in the garden. Always such a unique place, this home. Here he stood surrounded by lushness in the form of plants mixed in artfully with the white, cleansed sand and meditation stones, all the while having the desert beauty in front of him. So much more to come home to than an empty apartment on San Francisco's bay.

He clenched his teeth together, pushing off his self-pity, and was saved by the chime from a comm station. He dove back into the house and hurried down the hallway to the livingroom. The staff usually here to help manage Sarek's estate were dismissed for the evening, and Kirk bet the call was the one he was waiting for anyway. He grabbed the large, wooden rocking chair and pulled it up to the station. He answered the continuing chime, hoping it was really was -- finally -- his return call.

The seal for Starfleet Command appeared first, then faded into the receding, thin gray hair and dark brown eyes of Paul Michan, an old buddy from their early days in Starfleet. Poor Paul. He went gray at thirty, and he'd shave off his beard since he swore it made him look older, but his wife loved it too much. "Jim, I'd say I'm glad to hear from you if your message didn't say you wanted a favor. Your favors always scare me."

"Nothing so dramatic this time. Just information. You're one of the people in charge of the Cartwright investigation, aren't you?"

"Oh, but this is nothing dramatic. Yeah, I'm one of the lucky ones."

"Then this is what I need." He explained the problem behind the conflicting orders regarding Saavik's transfer, leaving out the personal letters sent to her and Spock. He put his request succinctly and backed it up with what he knew. The rest he needed from Cartwright's records.

Michan sat flabbergasted. "Jim, c'mon. You're kidding -- right? I have Command and the Federation Council huffing down my neck while my people go through Cartwright's records, and I'm supposed to put the official investigation on hold while I looked into someone's botched transfer?"

Put like that... but Kirk was determined to get at the truth. "What if I reminded you--"

"If you're bringing up the time you saved my life, forget it. It was your fault I got into that situation to begin with. And stuff the talk about our long friendship too. You only bring that up when you want something."

"Okay, Paul, how about this? Your daughter's entering Starfleet, isn't she? Most likely with your stern lecture in her ear about behaving in the manner of an officer. What if I told her about _your_ conduct as an officer? Starting with how we met on shore leave and you ended up naked in--"

Paul shook his head angrily, and then grinned. "You bastard, Jim. It's too quiet around here without you. Look, we both know I was going to do this and was just waiting to see how cleverly you bagged me into it. I'll see what I can do." He signed off.

It wasn't much, Kirk thought, but at least he did do something. With a sigh aimed mostly at himself, he glanced around the comfortable room with its mixtures of cultures from Sarek's and Amanda's missions, mostly Vulcan and Terran naturally. He leaned back in his seat, but the rocking chair put him in mind of his great-grandfather on the porch of the family farm. He bolted up and went outside.

The street out front, curling away from the house, and what neighboring homes he could see were all empty. Everyone was busy with something except for him. Even with the decreased heat, his shirt was plastered to his back, and the slightly increased gravity was pulling at his muscles; at least the trio-ox compound kept him breathing freely. He grinned ruefully at himself. The older, slighter Amanda breezed around with no problem while he stood here a sweaty mess.

He went back inside and took advantage of the water shower Sarek built for Amanda decades go. Kirk let the water flow over him, some of his tension slipping away with it as his mind buzzed over what to do now. Maybe getting a copy of Cartwright's records so he could research all this himself -- but that wasn't going to happen.

He toweled himself off and redressed, and then stopped to look at the small collection of Amanda's holographs: Amanda holding a baby Spock, and one taken a year ago of Spock and Sarek, blissfully ignorant of Amanda with a camera as they discussed something. Shaking his head again at himself, Kirk headed for the kitchen, thinking he'd at least get dinner ready in case anyone was breaking from the hospital.

Spock almost collided with him in the hallway, and he started in surprise. He hadn't seen the Vulcan all day since coming back from the Science Academy, having bored himself to death by getting underfoot.

"What are you doing back this early?" he asked.

Spock replied with his own question. "Captain, if you will follow me?"

Kirk wondered what had happened now to cause that somber voice as they crossed to Amanda's and Sarek's home office. Spock pulled a chair from his mother's desk across the room and brought it to his father's. He activated the computer station, rapidly accessing the Vulcan Science Academy at a level of security that amazed Kirk. The steps Spock went through blurred in front of him before the Vulcan finally stopped at one last level and turned in his chair to face his former captain.

"I know it has bothered you to be outside of this project," he said with no preamble. "I appreciate what that has meant and your efforts to help despite the restrictions put on you. You must understand the hybrids represent more than themselves, including the political ramifications of their rescue. Because of all you have done for Vulcan in general and my family in particular, you have been given clearance to the classified data. The report I am giving you contains the information we have, including the rescue mission to their homeworld and the facts I gathered later when I returned there."

"When you returned--? Was _that_ the planet you went to because of the Romulan weapon? The one that neturalized oxygen?" Where was his mind nowadays! Back then, he had been so despondent over once more being pushed into the admiralty -- even if he had reluctantly agreed to it to save the _Enterprise_ -- he had paid scant attention to anyone else involved in that mission outside those he knew well. Now it made sense. One of Spock's protégés gave information that led his ship to the source for the weapon that almost destroyed Starfleet Command. All of Earth was the Romulans' next target, most likely Vulcan after it, and on to the next planet until the Federation crumbled.

But with all the talk of Romulan hybrids and secrecy, why hadn't he remembered that mission sooner? Especially with Saavik involved in it? Admiral Niagara himself left a glowing note in her record, commending her for her part in all of it.

He scoured his mind for details from those mission reports even as Spock completed the last security clearance. He pushed away, giving Kirk room to get closer to the screen. He first saw Spock's name amongst the others, including Sarek and the pediatrician Salok. The content directory included a summary, a timeline, medical reports, and an involved account that would take hours for him to read. For now, he brought up the summary.

Seeing his ship's name jolted him. Spock listed an event where the _Enterprise_ saw a small ship chased by Romulan cruisers. The sole occupant was transported to Sickbay badly burned and injured, and dying immediately afterwards. Spock took leave for Vulcan, listing reasons such as contacting the dead woman's family.

That's all Kirk thought it was.

Now he saw Spock had mind melded with the woman whose name was T'Pren. She gave him the vital information that Vulcans and children were dying on a failed Romulan colony world called Thieurrull -- translation, Hellguard. Giving someone that message was T'Pren's reason to hold on to life when death dragged her eagerly towards itself. Spock took her message and brought it to Vulcan, organizing a rescue team for the people on Hellguard.

Here the summary backtracked to an abbreviated timeline, bullet listing the events and cross-indexing them with the extensive accounts further in the report. He stuck with the short list for now.

'During a period of fifteen years, we lost four ships -- the _Criterion_, _Perceptor_, _Constant_, and _Diversity_ – with no word and no trace. The crews, a total of five hundred and fifty six of our people, were presumed dead as their families experienced breakings in bondings.'

'As discovered later – see cross-reference 3.12.44 – Romulan scientists discovered a way to…'

"Dear god." Kirk's heart froze and landed in his stomach where its renewed beating stirred nausea to add with his horror. Now he understood the secret behind the Romulan hybrids, why – as Spock said – they meant more than just themselves.

'… discovered a way to tamper with our internal chemistry to cause _pon farr_ outside of the seven-year cycle. The victim was then matched with a Romulan who took advantage of the condition. From this violation, a hybrid child was conceived and born. Some victims immediately committed suicide; the Romulans killed others, but evidence showed many still lived abandoned in the failed colony.'

He raised his eyes to Spock's. "Did you find any alive? The Vulcans, I mean."

Spock's answer was heavy. "No. All were gone."

"All five hundred of them?"

"Yes, although we did not find many of their bodies... then."

_Then?_ But he stuck with his first train of thought -- better that than to go off on tangents and forget his questions. "So no Vulcans, but instead the unexpected thirty-three hybrids the Romulans created."

"No known records account for how many hybrids existed before the _Symmetry_ team landed. The thirty-three were survivors. Their presence, however, was told to me by T'Pren. We knew to expect them, although not everything about their condition. After some discussion--"

Kirk almost chuckled, but the circumstances made laughter of even the smallest degree a disgrace. "I know those words. You use them whenever Bones and I bully you with illogic or you stubbornly insist on getting your own way. The rescue team didn't want to do what you wanted, correct? And you resorted to some trick to get it."

But Spock didn't respond to this low level teasing, and Kirk soon learned why. "You would not think it to see them now, but no one from _Symmetry_ recognized the children as Vulcans. The shock of discovering the events on Hellguard clouded many of their judgements. The original plan was to take the survivors to our research station at Gamma Eri."

"And you thought that wrong."

"And I thought that wrong. Therefore, after some discussion, it was agreed to recognize the abandoned children as Vulcans, entitling them to a genetic scan to find their families so they may provide a home. Of the thirty-three hybrids, twenty-nine ordered the genetic scan, one decided against it but chose to study the Vulcan disciplines without her family, and three chose no contact with Vulcan at all. The latter four were placed under the planet's foster care system, and they all lived offworld. One male was adopted two years later. All the details for each survivor is in their records."

_One decided against it but chose to study the Vulcan disciplines without her family_. Saavik. Had to be.

Kirk flipped to the individual records, seeing Salok's medical statistics and the annual accounts – more if deemed necessary – on each hybrid's progress until adulthood. He flipped back to the summary.

'Due to a Romulan attack on Starfleet command, Spock, son of Sarek, traveled with Saavik – see Saavik, full account – to Thieurrull. A number of the missing bodies were discovered in an underground facility. Among these dead were skeletal remains for – presumably – hybrid children. All were used as test subjects for the weapon used on Starfleet Command. See recordings.'

Kirk remembered the bodies at Starfleet Headquarters, blotched and blackened in death, while he was trapped floors beneath them, staring impotently at those people for days. He didn't flip to the recordings.

'Accounts for other dead include ritual suicide by adults, and murders within the hybrids for survival. No explanation was found for why the Romulans considered breeding the children necessary or why the colony was then abandoned. The Empire denies all existence of the hybrids and any involvement in the deaths.'

'Due to the survival nature of their lives, the hybrids exhibited no value system. However, they were forgiven any offenses committed during their years on Thieurrull. These offenses include murder, rape, and cannibalism – usually committed by older children on the younger or weaker ones --'

Kirk swallowed hard. He once lived on the Tarsus IV colony where Kodos the Executioner, as the man was historically called, murdered 4000 colonists claiming lack of food to keep them alive. So Jim knew brutality from a young age, but this… raping each other, killing – _eating_ each other – and knowing no other way to live…

He thought of the Saavik he knew and tried to imagine who she was on Hellguard. He failed.

And what jackass made sure the 'offenses' were spelled out anyway? Why not let it go?

Now he understood the classified standing on this information. Vulcans were raped – and he considered it rape even though the Vulcans were in _pon farr_. But it wasn't just avoiding prying eyes that made this report confidential. By taking _Symmetry_ across the Neutral Zone, the Vulcans disregarded Federation law and the Interstellar Treaty with the Romulan Star Empire. And like Spock and the twelve other team members, Kirk didn't care about that. Sarek and Spock knew he didn't, and must have convinced everyone else of it or his security clearance never would have gone through.

But the Federation would care if it found out: 'political ramifications' – definitely a boatload of political ramifications – if this report and its contents became public.

He looked up at the Vulcan next to him. He didn't know what he looked like after reading just the little bit he had, but Spock was… deliberately composed. "I'll--" His mouth was dry. "I'll read the full thing later."

The other nodded. "I will set your security clearance so you may access it any time. Meanwhile, your help with Sarek's and my research into outside causes would be of great help, Captain."

"Spock, don't you think--"

"It is best to focus on the present rather than a past that cannot be changed. If this planet is not the source, we have other theories. The main one is the Romulans are responsible for the disease. Some healers and others on the Vulcan Council wonder if it was genetically bred into the hybrids, perhaps as a self-destruct mechanism. Another theory is the hybrids were bred to depend on a certain compound meant to be given regularly by their Romulan creators; having lacked it for so long, the hybrids are now dying. Some point out that Saa… that one particular person's career--"

"Her name is Saavik, Spock."

"-- has now led her into two direct confrontations with Romulan agents. These Romulans, learning that at least one survivor exists in Federation hands, are seeking to kill off their creations. None of these theories account for why she--"

"Spock, I started an investigation into Cartwright's records. We should know if he and Valeris are responsible for--"

"--Why she contracted the disease so much later than the others. What we do know is, Vulcan cannot find the cure as of the present and we lack information. We need to know if any records exist to prove these theories and if the Romulans have a cure. The Empire denies everything, as you read, Captain, despite evidence to the contrary. Records regarding the oxygen bioweapon did exist, however through the lieutenant's actions--"

"Dammit, stop calling her that! We may not know exactly what happened, but we know it's not Saavik's fault! You're clinging to this out of habit, not because it's the truth, can't you see that? And stop calling me captain."

Spock sat, everything he thought carefully kept out of his expression. He finally looked back at Kirk. "Retired Starfleet officers, as opposed to those that resign or lose their commission, keep their rank and may be called it with no offense. Even those officers who chose early retirement. My previous point was this: official channels will not ascertain the information we need."

Kirk held himself back from wringing Spock's neck. "What about the first thing I said?"

Spock stroked the computer controls quietly. "I saw her."

Kirk was surprised. "But that's good, Spock. What happened?"

One eyebrow rose. "She was sleeping. And I was reminded by one of the staff that visiting hours were over."

_Dammit!_ "What would you have said?"

The second eyebrow rose to meet the first like a shake of the head against Fate's intervention. "I do not know. I did, however, see her condition is improving."

Kirk pushed ever so gently. "Are you going back?"

Spock carefully moved the items on his father's neatly organized desk and then straightened them again. "I do not know how to… express certain matters. Matters that will most likely upset her."

Jim remembered Spock's behavior after the letter arrived. That was going to be hard to tell _and_ hear, even though he himself agreed with it at the time. Come to think of it, what was in that letter? Was Spock troubled over telling Saavik that too? "You'll think of a way. It only seems hard, but you'll see. You just – talk."

"Indeed?" Spock drawled, one eyebrow now angled at Kirk. "As you have on this mission?"

"What's that supposed to – oh." He rubbed his forehead, remembering how just moments ago he was ranting silently against the Vulcan and McCoy for keeping secrets. How he had let his frustration with retirement affect how he acted with the other two. "For god sakes, Spock, don't follow my lead when I'm acting like a five year old!"

"Dr. McCoy did say you were sulking."

"Don't listen to Bones either." He watched the Vulcan and saw how brittle he was. _If I push him anymore, he might break. And he is trying. And still getting over what happened a month ago – just in time for this to happen_. Valeris – and Spock thought he had given her everything she needed to use against them all.

"All right then--" Kirk went back to their main topic. Or rather, went along with Spock on leaving the difficult topic for now. And now his own frustration was gone. He had a purpose: to somehow get a contact into the Empire and find out if the Romulans wanted their hybrids dead. "—back to what we're going to do. Official channels are out -- that leaves us with unofficial channels. No surprise we have contacts along the Neutral Zone. The thing is, can any of them find what we're looking for? It's got to be buried pretty deep."

Spock nodded. "It will be difficult. And while we wait for news, we must investigate other sources. Extremist groups certainly exist within the Federation, and half-Romulans are a tempting target – if a prejudicial party discovered them. It is simple enough to ascertain if any such faction is claiming credit for the disease. More in depth investigation is needed to discover if they are responsible but wait to claim credit."

"That's if something on Vulcan isn't the cause." Kirk bit on his thumbnail and stared at the screen, seeing a game plan there on its blank surface. "So we move forward just in case. Like you said, making a cursory search through the hate groups will be easy. The in-depth research will take longer. Time to call in more favors in the Fleet. As for the Romulans--" He shook his head. "—this will take more than Bones' Romulan ale smuggler."

"Jim."

McCoy stood in the door, and Kirk's mouth dropped at the shocking sight of him. Dark circles gouged ruts under his eyes, and stubble grew on his jaw. That was nothing; the long hours at the hospital caused that. But his eyes were hollow and flat.

"We lost four more."

Spock got McCoy into a chair and disappeared, coming back with a brandy. The doctor took a swallow, and then just twisted the glass between his hands. "Thanks. But I'm not so bad off that I need a full glass. Yet. It's just that--" He banged a fist on Sarek's desk. "The treatments were working! We at least slowed down the phase's progression, and then, starting at three this morning, we lose four of them… one right after another." He glanced up at Spock. "I don't know if you want to know who. Zytka, Jalon, Nizar, and Pekhi."

"Pekhi?" Kirk asked. "Didn't I meet her?"

"Yeah. Her husband was the first one we met, remember? She was laying in the bed next to his."

"How's Vi'hai?"

"As well as a dying man can be whose wife just passed away before his eyes." The brandy sloshed in the glass from McCoy's rough handling. "He wanted to take her katra, but we were afraid he wouldn't bear up." He sighed. "Jalon's family never came. Nizar almost died alone too, but his wife came at the last minute. You should've seen his face when he saw her." He dragged a finger around the rim of the glass. "Thank god she showed."

"Bones--"

"I mean, they didn't die _alone_. Some friends came. And someone on the med team was always with them, so their katras weren't lost."

"Bones--"

"I know, I know. Doctors lose patients. And I'm not the only doctor on the team. But I really thought we had _something_. ...Or maybe I'm just feeling my time here counting down and I'm not doing enough." He shoved the glass away and laced his fingers together. "Some good news. Saavik is out of Phase I, not through anything we did, but she's out. She just left it like all the others."

Kirk looked over his head to Spock. He was quiet and listening.

McCoy appeared to be praying with the way he laid his folded hands on the desk. "Eleven dead total. Eleven. And we have no idea what to do to save the others."

"Bones, we'll figure something out."

"Yeah, I know, it's just -- I was the only human there today, so I thought I'd better get away since I was broadcasting my frustration to Sorel and the others. I can't disturb the whole team or the patients." He took a slow, cleansing breath while Kirk again checked with Spock who nodded. McCoy was broadcasting, but Spock was used to shielding against it, as would the Vulcan medical team. But the weakened patients most likely would have been bombarded by it. "At least the three other hybrids arrive tonight at the orbital station. Maybe we'll get a real break there and see what the difference is that's keeping them healthy."

Kirk noticed McCoy assumed they didn't have the disease.

"And Amanda just told me that Rrelthiz should be arriving sometime tomorrow night. So we have more help coming." He laid a hand out flat, stroking the desk's surface. "We're moving all the patients to the orbital station if these three check out okay, and we have a backup plan of putting the worst cases in stasis while we keep working on a cure. But... the best medical minds on Vulcan and what help I am -- and we only have twenty-two living patients left. It's not enough."

"You need a break, Bones. Let's get you something to eat--"

"No. This break was good enough. Srre, Sa'd, and T'Ahiyya are getting their stuff together for the orbital station. They'll test the three coming in. Tu'ong, Daniel, and I are backing up Sorel while they're gone. If nothing else, I'm going to pull my own weight."

Kirk threw an arm around his shoulders. "Then we'll head back to the hospital with you. Spock and I have work to do, and the resources at the Science Academy will be a big help."

* * *

Her name was Jdehn, born of Hellguard as its name translated to, formerly a ward of Vulcan's foster care system, pilot of her own ship _and destiny, thank you very much_.

She worked on a small glitch in her sensors on the _Independent_, an open panel before her with her hands in protective work gloves buried in her ship's innards. She listened to her two male companions, also of Hellguard, as they prepared to disembark on the orbital station. It was so odd to see them after all these years, and so... uncomfortable to be this close to them, enclosed in each other's company on the small ship. Except for maybe the tall, lanky one -- so quiet and sweet. How the hell did he ever survive with the rest of them?

A sharp, metal corner tore at her glove, nicking the skin beneath. She swore, and made herself focus. She never expected to see Vulcan and never wanted to. Even this station was too close. She didn't want someone or something making her feel cheated – unlike the big mouth in the main room. She didn't want to think about it, about anything Vulcan, and ignored any traits she felt she inherited. She could calculate in her head to the nanosecond how fast she traveled from one place to another, but insisted on using the computer instead. She could have had that Vulcan woman T'San show her how to use her telepathic senses all those years ago; instead, she had learned how to shield herself and nothing more. She never wore a chronometer, but knew exactly the time if she thought about it. So she never thought about it. If she weren't in danger of dying, she wouldn't be here.

Why was it getting to her so much? Why not just go out there and face the situation? The landing ramp was down, and the two men were just standing around waiting for her. The glitch in the ship could wait.

But she didn't go.

She saw the mechanical problem with the sensors, and leaned in closer to get a better look. She concentrated so hard, she didn't realize the two men were quiet now. And as she shoved her face into the open panel, she didn't see the dark figure stealing in from the shadows until it knocked her unconscious.


	5. Chapter 5

"I'm telling you I'm needed at the hospital!" McCoy argued for the fifth time. A few others waiting for tables in the restaurant stared in his direction. _And they're not even Vulcan_, he thought sourly, but he lowered his voice to a hiss. "Sa'd and Srre found that the three hybrids who came in yesterday have the disease! They're coming down here from the orbital station tonight. And Rrelthiz is coming in too. Someone's got to show her around, and I said I would."

"Sorry, Bones." Kirk didn't look sorry at all. "But I have my orders. Sorel and Daniel said it was time for your night off, and I was to drag you out bodily if necessary."

Amanda patted his arm. "Give in, Leonard. At least have dinner with me since I can't get my husband or my son to do it. I wish someone would throw them out for a night."

"See?" McCoy hollered. Now the Vulcans turned pointedly with other waiting patrons. "No one's dragging them out to a dinner they don't want!"

"I'm insulted," Amanda said cheerfully. He hastily apologized, but she waved it away. "And the truth is, they took breaks earlier today. Sarek was needed for other duties and came home afterwards. He brought Spock with him. Now, you will have a good meal and clear your head. Doctor's orders."

"Not from this doctor."

Kirk patted him on the back. "Face it, Bones, you lose. Be gracious about it."

He couldn't argue because the maitre d' came up to Amanda with a huge smile just then. The place was a favorite of both hers and Sarek's, and they had brought McCoy and Kirk here before. It was an Italian restaurant with authentic food, run by a human family who immigrated here from the Deneb system years ago. It was popular with Vulcans and non-Vulcans alike.

Amanda was talking with the owner himself, but too low for McCoy to hear. He tried so hard that he jumped when Kirk spoke to him.

"I'm leaving my own work, you know. But Spock's filling in for me just like other people are filling in for you. We don't do anybody any good by pushing ourselves into collapsing."

"I know the clichés too, Jim."

"Good. Listen to them."

Amanda turned back to them with a smile. "Table's this way."

They followed their host, who paid effusive attention to Amanda, to a table much larger than they needed. A semi-circular bench curved around it, able to hold at least six people. Two more chairs stood at the head. The table was within sight of the door, so they were taking their seats in a few seconds.

"Are we expecting other people?" Kirk asked. McCoy slid to the middle of the bench seat and Kirk went next to him.

"Possibly." She glided in from the other side and took the handed menu, exchanging words with Angelo in some other language.

McCoy waited for him to leave. "Spock and Sarek coming after all?"

"Maybe." She passed the menus around. "Maybe others that I will need your help with. I had to clear my schedule too if it makes you feel any better." She didn't smile, but she gave them a calm, confident look. "I asked that you be spared tonight for a reason."

_Why didn't someone just say so?_ McCoy wondered, but realized Amanda would tell them if it became necessary.

Their drinks came, and he took in a big mouthful, letting the coolness seep into him.

"Leonard?"

His eyes met hers over the glass rim.

"Can you tell us what's being done at the hospital? The three people at the orbital station, now that Sa'd diagnosed them with the disease, what does it mean?"

He sipped this time, long and slow, then put the glass down. "It means a few things. The first is that our theory about the planet causing the disease is blown away. So we're left with something in their chemical or genetic makeup acting like a time bomb, or that the Romulans are killing them off for some other reason. Or some bigots are attacking them. I know Sarek, Jim, and Spock are doing what they can to track that down. The second change is our work searching for an environmental cause was a waste."

Seeing Amanda's lips press together made him wince.

"It happens sometimes. But we had to do that work, we couldn't know it wasn't necessary. And it's not like we didn't do any other research. The first priority now is halting Phase III before someone else dies. We talked to all the patients about putting the worst cases in stasis chambers. We're almost tempted to put everyone in Phase III in them, but they're digging their heels in anyway. But the worst cases... eight have said yes so far and we think we'll have two more. With those ten safe, we go ahead and do everything possible for the others. Worst comes to worst, we can put them in stasis too."

"To buy us time."

"Yeah. We _got_ to find that cure. Whether that means finding the Romulans or a hate group or just finding _it_. But this move with the stasis chambers gets us time to do that. We even talked to Saavik about using one before Phase II hit. She shot that idea down before we got it out of our mouths."

Amanda's mouth twitched and then sadly stilled. "I'm sure she did. She woke up out of healing sleep into this nightmare. She's not doing that again if she can help it."

"You saw her?"

Amanda sounded defensive. "I try to see her everyday. She doesn't get many visitors, Len."

"I know, I stopped by too." He glanced at Kirk who looked suddenly guilty.

"Do you know, I got so caught up with pressing Spock and then the work -- No, I haven't. I will."

"I'm glad Spock tried to see her that one time." McCoy sighed loudly. "I _told_ her he tried, but she didn't seem to believe me." He shook his head. "Just so you're prepared, Jim, it's no better on her side. She's damned stiff whenever I pop in, and I have a medical excuse to be there. I don't know what bothers her more – that she hasn't seen Spock coming by or that my being there emphasizes he's not coming by. Or just that I'm a friend of his. She doesn't know what the hell to say to me. She's polite -- don't get me wrong – we both are. That's the hell of it."

Amanda's eyes sparked. It was the only indication she was angry besides her carefully setting her own glass down. "This has to stop. Now. And I'd be grateful if anyone has any ideas."

"If I can just get that information from Michan!" Kirk lamented.

"What good will it do?" Amanda was as mad as McCoy ever saw her. "Spock was there when we discussed it, and I told Saavik what we thought. But he hasn't tried to see her since that once, and every time I visit her, she chases me out in case it upsets Spock!" She snapped her napkin as she laid it on her lap. "Do you know, I actually understand what they're going through? I think that frustrates me more. When Sarek was ill with his heart problems, you must have wondered how I didn't know. I'm _bonded_ to him and had no clue. Because he thought he'd save me from the situation and put me at a distance so I wouldn't sense it. It took me some time to get over that hurt." She looked over at them. "And now Spock and Saavik are struggling with their trust, and even though I understand, it's more frustrating than being one of the people doing something about. I'm two steps away from throwing them in a room together and not letting them out until they deal with the whole thing."

"Good solution!" McCoy cheered. "Remind me to use it sometime."

But Kirk was still on his original point. "Proof goes a long way with a Vulcan."

She almost rolled her eyes.

"If we _have_ proof, they _have_ to listen."

McCoy snorted.

"And if not..." Kirk grinned. "… I'll help fling them into that room. And at least I'll be happy to have one mystery cleared up. In the meantime, I'll stop by Saavik's room. At least she has Vi'hai and the others for company until we straighten this out."

But Amanda negated that idea immediately. "They don't go near each other if they can help it. Vi'hai and Pekhi's marriage is – was a rare exception. They'd never be in that ward jammed together if they weren't all in the same phase."

Their waiter came back with salads, and no one said anything while he was there. McCoy almost ordered another drink before remembering Amanda's comment about possibly needing his help. He ordered lemonade instead – or what tasted like lemonade here on Vulcan.

With the waiter gone, he said, "I wondered why the privacy walls are closed so often. And I couldn't figure out how they could stand being together. Never thought of the simple answer: they can't."

"But why not?" Kirk asked. "After what they've been through together."

"But that's just it, Jim." Amanda suddenly stopped eating and just poked at her dinner salad. "They didn't go through it _together_. They went through it in spite of and against each other. Nothing they needed to live existed in enough quantities for all of them. To get food, you had to beat someone else to it, and then be prepared to fight to the death to keep it. You read the report, Jim, you know what they did to each other."

McCoy began to feel ill by the abundant smell of food in the restaurant. Kirk looked down at his plate, his lips going tight, and he shoved the salad away. "But if they banded together--"

"What then? Spread a piece of food not filling for one person to five people? That's how they looked at it."

"And then five die instead of one. By the time _Symmetry_ arrives, a handful are alive instead of thirty-three." His hazel eyes clouded. "But I still think they're better off together. Didn't any of them try? If not then, what about now on Vulcan?"

She nodded. "As I said, Vi'hai and Pekhi. A few others. And then the Vulcans on Hellguard helped some. Look at Saavik and T'Pren."

"T'Pren?" he asked. "The woman who escaped to my ship? She knew Saavik?"

"You haven't heard that story? It's a good one... if you can pry it out of her."

"Why wouldn't she--"

McCoy saw everything that meld years ago between Spock and Saavik had revealed: her desperate bid to fight the guards so T'Pren could escape; stealing a knife from a Centurion's boot; Vulcans refusing to enter death cages, but going in for Saavik's sake; the vile beating from the guards raining on her small body until she escaped by using the knife, living in fear of the enemy coming back for her, killing her… "The story has a lot of bad turns to it, Jim. It's hard to separate it out."

Amanda patted his hand, held it, and he realized he was clenching his knife in a fist.

The waiter returned, took away the unwanted salads and told them their entrees would be out shortly.

Kirk tried to pick up the threads of the conversation. "So some Vulcans tried to help out anyway. Just like some families are supportive here."

"Yes, some are," Amanda said quietly. "They don't let the past color their thinking or they learn not to."

"Like Srre?"

"Yes, like him. What's interesting is Srre's mother and sister never blamed Mal'Shik for what happened on Hellguard, they always accepted him. But Srre didn't and his half-brother knew it. They competed too. Mal'Shik wanted to be a healer, and he actually was the more talented of the two of them, especially his telepathic senses. He could have rivaled Sorel or perhaps even surpassed him. Srre's working with the survivors now is his way to make peace for the years he shut Mal'Shik out. At least that's what I think."

"Shame he didn't realize that before his brother died."

"Yes, it is. I wonder how many others will be like that. The ones that can't see beyond the pain of what happened in the past and do only what is required of them. Some even let an association with the issue bias them. T'Pren's family has rejected Saavik's request to discuss her with them. They do not want Saavik to even _mention_ her prior relationship with T'Pren, and they weren't related."

McCoy wished he had ordered that second drink. At length, he broke their silence. "Is anyone besides me desperate for good news?"

His companions gave very small, breathy laughs for the sake of it more than feeling like it.

"Look," he said. He stunk at being the cheerleader and he knew it, but someone had to say something. "We're going to beat this thing. We will. We're going to keep the worst cases safe, we've narrowed down causes – okay, not a lot, but we're not looking in the wrong direction anymore. We've got the best minds and resources at our disposal, and… and ..."

Amanda smiled weakly. "And Saavik's out of Phase I."

"Right. And Saavik's out of Phase I."

"Which reminds me, I have to talk to her about something. Perhaps after dinner."

"Uh..." McCoy cleared his throat. "If it's what I think you want to talk over with her, she's already given her answer. She's not… um, _choosing_ anybody for Phase II."

Kirk frowned while Amanda gave another little laugh, more heartfelt this time, and shook her head. "I should have known that given the chance, she'd defy a forced choice. It's not like when we thought Phase II was for real, and the first few hastily picked bondmates." She suddenly sobered. "It was a good decision for those who wanted each other anyway, like Pekhi and Vi'hai, but for the others--"

She trailed off, and the men waited, Kirk finally asking, "The others?"

"We're only talking about a few people, but some used it as an opportunity to ally themselves with greater Houses." Her temper flared. "It's wrong and it's sad because it's not the usual circumstances. The hybrids are rejected enough. They didn't need spouses using them. Not when--" She stopped.

"Not when they thought they were finally getting acceptance," Kirk finished.

She nodded sadly. She looked up suddenly. "Don't get me wrong. I've played my share of matchmaking and we have a higher rate for successful marriages than Earth. Everybody plays matchmaker here, but this was something different."

"Nizar," McCoy asked, "what about his marriage?"

"There's something else. She came to his bedside, I hear. So she found he meant something to her after all, or she had enough integrity to be with him when he really needed her. That raises my opinion of her. Nizar was the last one to marry. The others didn't when it wasn't necessary."

Kirk interrupted. "How did they ever find out it wasn't – that it was part of the disease and not fatal?"

"One of them was trapped alone and survived. And the fact the women were going through it with male symptoms." Amanda shared a glance with McCoy. "Have you heard--?"

"Yeah, it's something I wanted to check out while I'm here. I'll tell you later, Jim."

"So what's Saavik going to do?" Kirk asked.

McCoy knew Jim was thinking of the ritual combat and feeling old aches. "Just live through it. It's not going to be fun, and she's kind of giving a tidal wave an obscene gesture right before it hits her rowboat, but it's certainly an option. It's something you would do, Jim."

"Me!"

"Uh huh. I know you're thinking you'd never turn down a chance to--" He suddenly remembered he sat next to Spock's mother. "—to... uh..."

Amanda laughed, bright and sparkling and for real. "You two really are sweet." Something made her look towards the restaurant's lobby. "Ah yes. Our guests came after all. Gentlemen, you wanted to be useful."

Like hers, McCoy's seat faced the door so he got a clear look that made his heart freeze. His reaction came from too many missions near and against the inhabitants behind the Neutral Zone.

Three Romulans stood in the lobby.

No, wrong -- he reacted like a doctor this time -- three of his _patients_ stood in the lobby, a woman and two men. They spread out in the space, the woman leaning on a wall to the left, the tall, almost painfully lean male looking at the pictures and artifacts on the right wall, and the shorter – in comparison to the other – but more muscular male stood dead center. They tried very hard, too hard, to appear normal; at least, the woman and the skinny male did. Her hip and shoulder lay against the wall while her ankles and arms crossed nonchalantly, but her eyes darted in every direction. The veins in the tall man's neck stood out like chords, and he jumped as people flowed around him.

But the last male's feet were spread apart in the stance of a fighter, his hands in their fingerless, leather gloves were almost in fists, and his eyes challenged everyone in the room. Antonio and other waiting patrons gave them a wide berth.

The saying went "If it looks like a Vulcan but acts emotionally, it's a Romulan." Not in this case. Not quite.

_But what do you call a half-Romulan that chooses not to be Vulcan? And not to be a Romulan for that matter. _ McCoy wondered. _Especially with that last guy just itching for a fight_.

Amanda ignored that or didn't see it; she was crossing the room, calling a friendly greeting as she got closer. Antonio looked enormously relieved.

McCoy scrambled to his feet and ran with Kirk to get behind Amanda.

"I'm glad you found your way with no problems," she was saying.

"I still don't get why we're here," the half-Romulan woman said. "They told us we were going to the hospital."

Only one other female hybrid turned down the genetic scan besides Saavik. _So this is Jdehn_. She wore a khaki colored jumpsuit with work gloves sticking out of one pocket and a few tools clipped to her belt. Heavy ship boots protected her feet and rose her another few inches so she was as tall as McCoy. Her hair was a medium brown as were her eyes, and she bore a few extra pounds giving her a rounder figure than any of her compatriots. But then, the only other hybrids McCoy saw were in Phase III and, of course, Saavik whose build was completely different.

"You'll have to eventually," Amanda answered. "But I wanted your first time on Vulcan to be more pleasant than that."

"Didn' you hear?" the well-built male sneered. "We're the ones that don' like Vulcan."

Amanda smiled. "That's why we're in an Italian restaurant."

His voice was heavily accented. He was as tall as Jdehn without needing boots for it, although he wore them, and he had darker coloring. The bulky muscles in his arms made them form an A-line to his body. Scar tissue bordered his eyes, and his nose was broken at least once without being healed properly.

_He is a fighter!_ McCoy realized, recognizing the signs of a boxer or some other similar type of athlete. What he couldn't do was identify who the man was. The pictures in his head of the rescued Hellguard children didn't help without a name. They had changed too much with time and a decent diet. This dark eyed, angular faced male was similar enough in that respect to the taller one that McCoy didn't know which of the two names in his head he should use. Would it help if he just guessed and called it out?

McCoy eyed the strutting confidence. _No, it wouldn't. Damn, I feel old._

That strutting confidence became worse as it focused on Amanda. "Ain't that sweet. Slayin' the fatted calf for us, eh?"

"Well, not quite. This _is_ Vulcan."

The tall male smiled, once and quickly, but otherwise looked too wary to move. Jdehn was… waiting, not sure. In the next second, she stepped away, showing she was no part of the problem. Her tall companion nervously did the same.

Kirk bristled next to McCoy as they stood at Amanda's shoulders. The younger man took them in with one glance and disregarded them disdainfully, not even caring he stood alone. Worse, he looked back down on Amanda, and suddenly, the predator saw weakness. He ignored McCoy's shout and Kirk's step forward.

_We are so going to get our asses kicked._

Someone darted in, slipping between Amanda and her assailant so smoothly, no one saw her coming until she was just there: Saavik.

"Stand back," she ordered the male.

McCoy couldn't see around her so he took a step sideways, using this opportunity to slip a hand into the medical pouch on his hip. He felt the length of the hypo, calculating how much time he'd need to load it with a tranquilizer. He glanced at Kirk who also moved a step aside as a backup to Saavik's ready stance. He nodded that he understood the doctor's plan.

Saavik had a bit of height over her opponent, but he had the muscle. Everything was in his favor. They made an incongruous picture. She wore a cream dress that flowed down her lines, sleeveless so her arms were free to move, and slits on the sides giving her legs the same liberty. He wore his thick vest like a warrior's chest plate.

Except, from this angle, McCoy saw physical stature wasn't what counted. Neither did arrogant behavior. Saavik was staring her opponent down. _Staring him down!_

The male blinked and gathered himself again.

_A punk like that will strike out just so he doesn't lose face. Why doesn't somebody get help?_ He wished Amanda had told him what he'd be facing. He didn't have anything to knock out a bull elephant.

Saavik stopped it from going further. "Do you know whom you address?"

The male's conceit was rising again. "I know you, Saavik."

"Not I. Her. Your clue was seeing the only human woman who is this Vulcan. Think on that and remember who saved your life years ago." Her voice was calm but hard, and her eyes drilled with dominance.

The male glanced sideways at Amanda, keeping his face and body to Saavik. The arrogance suddenly drained from him, changing to sophomoric remorse. "Sorry. I didn' know."

"The point is treat no one as you just did her, Mekhai. Understood?"

He bridled at his name, but said nothing. Amanda tapped Saavik's arm with clear affection. "I'm sure it is. And with that settled, why don't we sit down?"

"Amanda," someone called.

Three Vulcans stood purposefully behind them and to the side, dressed in the uniforms of the Vulcan Science and Exploration Division. McCoy felt a wave of relief. _What do you know? The cavalry was here all the time._

No police force existed on Vulcan. In the centuries of peace following Surak, such an organization wasn't necessary. But with the large intake of offworlders, problems arose. Thankfully, they were rare, extremely rare as Vulcan and its sedate style was not enticing to a rowdy crowd. But for the sparse problems, the VSE was asked to expand its duty towards maintaining order with Starfleet's aid.

Amanda saw the group and addressed the Vulcan male standing at the point of his trio. "Stron! I didn't know your ship was home. It's good to see you, although I apologize for the inconvenience. Let me introduce you."

Stron glanced over Mekhai, Jdehn, and the remaining hybrid who McCoy now knew. That Vulcan expression revealed nothing except the usual stoicism, but he must have recognized Mekhai and the others for what they were. _Criterion_, _Perceptor_, _Constant_, and _Diversity_ -- even the _Symmetry_ -- were Science and Exploration division ships and the existence of the Hellguard survivors was well known.

Stron was familiar with Kirk and McCoy's names even though Amanda didn't give ranks or titles, and he bowed his head in respect. So did the man and woman at his shoulders.

"You've met Saavik," Amanda continued pleasantly. "And this is Commander Stron and Subcommanders T'Mes and Soluk, all of the VSE." She turned to the newly arrived half-Romulans. "I'm sorry, but I'm unsure of your names."

"If I may," McCoy said and indicated each person. "Jdehn, Mekhai, and Arik."

Three heads swivelled in his direction. "Who are _you_?" Mekhai demanded.

"Your doctor."

Jdehn snorted. "Good job, Mekhai. Nothing like pissing off the guy who's trying to save your life."

McCoy winked at her while Mekhai bounced in his boots with embarrassed temper. He snapped at Stron, "You can take off now. You heard her." He jerked his head at Amanda. "Everythin's under control."

_That boy is too damned angry at the universe. He's going to hurt himself or someone else if he doesn't get that chip off his shoulder._

Soluk's head reared back. He was one of the few Vulcans McCoy ever saw with a beard, and if that powerful gaze was aimed at him, he'd shake.

But T'Mes broke formation and exchanged light glances with Amanda. "Then we will return to our dinner. Peace and long life to you all. Amanda, I wish you well with your situation. My husband--" She held out her two first fingers, and after a pause, Stron touched them with his. They walked away, Soluk trailing.

Amanda's smile was contained to her eyes, acknowledging T'Mes' amusement. She turned to her own party. "Now there's an example of an arranged marriage that works. Shall we be seated?"

Saavik kept between Amanda and the other three, and when they reached the table, she sat on the end -- Amanda protectively on the inside -- across from them where she could watch and get out quickly if necessary.

McCoy grumbled to himself as he and Jim took their previous places. _Nice of Saavik to assume we don't need protecting_.

Kirk turned his body in his seat so he too was watching the three hybrids. Arik sat next to him, still anxious, just as Jdehn on his left was still wary. Mekhai deliberately took the end seat so he was crosswise from Saavik whom he watched intently. She remained unfazed by him, which only rankled him more.

Amanda signaled the waiter over. "Can we get you something?"

Arik answered so quietly the waiter asked him to repeat it. Mekhai bit out his order, and then addressed the silent table. "How comfy, all us pals sittin' here."

"Why did you ever keep the accent?" Saavik asked, drawing out the acerbic question.

Jdehn turned to him too. "Yeah, I meant to ask you the same thing. What the hell is that?"

His answering scorn targeted Saavik. "I ain't the one tryin' to pass."

She arched her eyebrows, still unintimidated. "I am not 'passing', as you put it. I am Vulcan. I obtained my citizenship."

Arik burst out, "You got that without the gen scan?"

She nodded.

But Jdehn was scoffing at Mekhai. "It's got nothin' to do with passin', you moron, it's just not smart to wear a sign that shouts 'I used to be a Romulan'."

"At least I ain't pretendin' to be somethin' I ain't."

Jdehn snorted again. "Poetry."

Kirk asked Mekhai calmly, "Is that what you think everyone else is doing? Lying about who they are?"

McCoy saw Saavik finally register Jim's presence. He smiled at her, and she looked hesitant, confused, before dipping her head in return.

"Well, lookit her!" Mekhai stabbed a finger at Saavik. "Sittin' there like a tame pet! She's the worst of us!" He leaned forward across the table as far as he could go. "You think I forgot? On the ship, we're out, it's all over, and you still terrorizin' us! I gotta let what happened on the planet go, but not the ship. You pounded on me. Don't try lyin' about it!"

"I had no intention of lying."

His fist slammed down on the table, making everything shake and bounce together with metallic clinks and glass pingings. People at other tables scowled in his direction.

"Knock it off!" Jdehn hissed. "You're making it worse! You got Arik so worked up, he's afraid we'll attack him! He's the youngest, he's the next to go if this place runs out of food." She paled before the sound of her words died out in the air. "Arik, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

Arik pressed back against the bench seat like he wanted to slide behind Kirk. His long legs kept bumping into McCoy's as they scrambled from their tangle around the table's.

"I didn't mean it like that," Jdehn begged him. "I was tryin' to make a point that--" She swept the faces around the table with a desperate plea. "I'm not like this anymore, I swear. I bet none of us are, and we're not together one day..." She dropped her head on her hands, her thumbs digging into her closed eyes. "Shit."

At that untimely moment, the food was laid on the table. Four bodies stiffened, four pair of eyes targeted each other, watching for opening moves. Saavik looked away first, taking a deep steadying breath that didn't seem to work. Mekhai's hands clenched together, and McCoy thought he saw Arik tremble.

Silence.

Then Amanda spoke with a voice both gentle and teasing. "Do I have to take the silverware off the table?"

Everyone stared at her, except Saavik's disbelief lasted only a second. She conveyed plainly that nothing Amanda did surprised her anymore.

Jdehn was wide eyed. "I can't believe you just said that."

"It is a diplomat's maneuver," Saavik answered, eyes on Amanda who smiled beautifully in return. "Disarm a difficult situation with the unexpected."

Kirk chuckled from experience.

"It usually works," Amanda said cheerfully.

Mekhai gave a laugh that was a short, dark, explosion. "You wanna get rid of weapons, more than the silverware's gotta go."

"Really?" She made it sound like a debate on etiquette. "What else? Come now, no use hiding as you said before. What happened, happened. You needn't be afraid to discuss it."

He gaped at her, then "The candle" was pulled out of him in a whisper.

"The plates," Jdehn half-sobbed, looking down at her lap.

"The glasses," Arik murmured with furtive glances at the other three.

A heartbeat of silence before McCoy saw Amanda nudge Saavik under cover of the tabletop. She wasn't going to let her favorite ruin the peacetalks.

Teeth nearly clenched: "The tablecloth."

"Indeed?" Amanda's surprise changed to thoughtfulness. "Do I want the explanation?"

"No."

Mekhai jeered at Saavik. "Yeah, you'd think of that. So much for playin' Vulcan."

Again, she bent her will against him. "_Quiet_."

Again, he yielded even as he seethed.

Into this tense stillness, Arik turned to McCoy. "If we're talking about all this, maybe you can you tell me? Are we really dead in a year?"

Mekhai shot up, but made the mistake of keeping his fork in his hand. Instinctively, he spun it so he grasped it like a dagger. Saavik saw it and was on her feet before he shifted it in his hand. Her lunge made Jdehn bounce up and step back, hitting Arik who almost leapt over the bench for safety. The latter two watched the former pair, quivering with the anticipation for the assumed outcome, and even McCoy swore they'd never get out of this without bloodshed.

Kirk was making a move to get in the middle, the table blocking his way, and as he wrestled with it, Amanda's voice announced in authority words that McCoy couldn't translate. The four hybrids stopped, and even Saavik now stared incredulously.

With their attention on her, Amanda switched to Federation Standard. "Sit down," she ordered quietly. Like the chameleon she was, she went Vulcan.

_In the best sense of the word_, McCoy thought. For lack of anything else to say, he asked, "Is that what that meant? All those words to say sit down?"

Arik grinned, and it made his plain features alight with beauty. "That and a whole lot more."

Saavik was scowling darkly at her. "You agreed not to learn the language."

"I agreed not to learn it from _you_," Amanda corrected evenly. "I never said I wouldn't learn it from someone else. You're not the only one who speaks it on this planet."

Jdehn gawked at her. "But why learn it at all?"

"Because that is what I do. I serve in the diplomatic corps and one responsibility is to learn languages wherever possible. Frankly, it gave me my first job here. I translated everything in Vulcan into Federation Standard for any offworlders. That started me on the path of linguistics. Yours is a subset of the Romulan common tongue, so it wasn't so difficult once I learned that. Your grammar is different, and words are abbreviated and combined. Plus frequent cursing is required."

"You did that part well," Arik remarked admiringly, although Saavik obviously had other opinions.

"You are kind to say so. The food is getting cold."

When each person snuck surreptitious glimpses at the other, Kirk's mouth pulled to the side. "I think no one's hungry anymore. Better tell the waiter to take it all away."

Arik snapped out of his shell, reprimanding Kirk in a scandalized tone. "Never waste food, _never_. You can't swear you have a next meal comin'."

The former captain nodded solemnly. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Arik exchanged looks with Jdehn. She eyed her plate like it was an enemy trying to get the best of her. Amanda suddenly reached out and pulled her dinner towards her, and only McCoy saw Kirk wink out of his right eye before he did the same. McCoy followed suit. _Good one, Jim_. He counted another minute gone before Jdehn slowly dragged hers forward, picked up a fork and tasted. Arik watched Saavik, seeming to need her approval.

"Go ahead, Arik. I ate before I came. I was hardly aware Amanda planned a dinner party for this evening." The last was said dryly.

He stared at his plate, but did nothing. With a resigned expression, Saavik took one of salads, and he only darted a quick glance at Mekhai before he started eating. Jdehn grinned and gave him a friendly poke in the arm. He jumped, and she leaned over.

"I'm really sorry about before."

He quietly absorbed her apology with the offer of truce behind it, and suddenly beamed at her. It was a sweet smile, and it once more transformed his bland, medium brown looks made worse by his drab, floppy clothing. He appeared as a babe left amongst the wolfish other three, but McCoy reminded himself that Arik survived Hellguard with the other thirty-two. To do that, he committed the same acts they did even lacking their aggression.

Arik watched Saavik again with no unease this time, just open curiosity. She noticed. "Yes?"

"You're so… different."

Her eyebrows rose and fell in a shrug. "We all are."

Jdehn gave a bitter laugh. "Or we were before we ended up together again. It's like we're reverting 'cause that hellhole is pullin' us back."

Saavik spoke, the tense lines around her mouth revealing the depth behind the simple words. "Impossible. It no longer exists."

Three heads popped up from their meals in surprise.

"I'm damned," Mekhai muttered.

"We all are," Jdehn whispered. "Should've known even the Roms hated the world so much they'd destroy it."

Saavik spoke again. "Not them. Me."

McCoy saw the small swallow travel down the slim column of her throat, and his food turned to paste in his mouth. That horrid mission with him screaming at Spock to let Saavik come to Sickbay, and Spock's curt reply that she had paid a high price to watch Hellguard destroyed. And when she finally got on a medical bed, hands almost ruined, in shock from blood loss, she whispered without knowing it, "I sold my soul to see you die."

She was more uncomfortable than ever around he and Jim, now for reasons outside their friendship with Spock. Cracks showed tonight through her control, and for the first time in years, Hellguard peered through.

He hated admitting it, even to himself, but _he_ was uncomfortable with this side of her. It made it harder and harder for him to push down Spock's memories, and every burst of them made McCoy feel he violated her privacy in a way she'd never grant.

And it was so hard to think of what she once did to live.

_I'd give everything I own if T'Lar had taken this crap out of my head when she put Spock back in his_.

Mekhai's fork had dropped to his plate. For the first time, his belligerence was gone when he spoke to her about Hellguard's destruction. "Good."

"Agreed."

Arik gaped open mouthed. "It's really gone?" She nodded once, curtly. "I can't believe it. Do the others know?"

"I believe they do."

"Are they like you?"

She frowned in confusion, but it was Kirk who voiced it. "What do you mean, like Saavik?"

"Are they… different?"

McCoy forced himself not to look at her, guessing at her thoughts that the years of living on Vulcan made the others better.

"Do you mean the Vulcan disciplines?" Amanda asked, probably just as or more aware of what was going through Saavik's head. "Everyone is an individual and obtains different levels, but as a whole, I am sure you will find them… different. May I ask? Do you regret not studying them, the disciplines?"

Jdehn and Mekhai each said no, but hers sounded sincere while his was just as likely truthful but came out defensive. Arik hesitated and then shook his head. "If I had, I'd never met my parents. My real ones, the people who adopted me, I mean. And they're good people. They're coming here when… when things get bad."

"Yeah," Jdehn said, swirling her last bite around her plate. "I got on the horn with some friends yesterday after we got diagnosed. I'm hookin' up with them during that break before – well, before the last stage. Some of 'em said they'd come here after that." She asked Mekhai, "What about you?"

"The same." He looked over at Saavik and a touch, but only a touch, of his ill will crept back. "How 'bout you?"

"I will return to my ship."

"Who's comin' back witcha? I mean, you doin' that mental thing when you die?"

"Could you possibly be referring to the katra ritual?"

"Yeah."

"Most likely."

He shook his head. "That's messed up."

"Don't start that!" Jdehn pleaded. She forced her last bite down with a large swallow of water, then dropped her fork with a clatter. She pushed back, fingers drumming the tabletop before asking in a hushed voice, "Who's still alive?"

McCoy finally felt he had something to contribute again. He pulled his tricorder off his hip, putting the detachable Feinberger next to his plate. Now didn't seem to be a good time to take readings, except they were entering Phase I… and he was their doctor.

He started down the list of names while remembering the ones now gone from it. "Ny'Jul, Sajjan, Eitan, Micar--"

"Wait a minute!" Jdehn exclaimed. "I don't know them real well by name."

He handed over the tricorder with its pictures of each person now and from their _Symmetry_ record.

At her first glance, she snarled. "That's Micar? That sonuva--" She and Mekhai enjoyed a long string of the harshest possible expletives aimed at Micar's soul and how he should have died – painfully – a long time ago. For the fourth time that night, nearby patrons shot complaining glares in their direction and complained to the restaurant staff.

"Mekhai, Jdehn." Amanda was still in Vulcan mode so their names came out calm but firm. "This is one of my favorite places in the entire Federation. I brought you here as my guests, and I would like to do so again. However, we are testing the limits of acceptable social behavior when we colorfully describe modes of death."

Jdehn was still fuming. "What if we describe it in a lower volume?"

"That is acceptable."

A bit of humor peeked out of Mekhai's eyes for the first time. "You're really good," he told Amanda.

"Yes, I am. I should be. My experience goes back to before these two gentlemen," indicating McCoy and Kirk, "were even born."

Returning to the tricorder returned their bad tempers. "Has Micar seen you?" Jdehn asked Saavik incredulously.

McCoy swallowed.

And Saavik... The night was the worst to ever test her self-control. In the past few hours, people from her past and their old impression of her collided with whom she wanted and made herself to be. Hellguard and the behavior it buried in her psyche was resurfacing and giving no advanced warning so she could stop it. This layered onto the already difficult situations of being reminded continually of Spock with he, Jim, and even Amanda so close by. And she was going to die in a year.

Now Jdehn reminded her of… what? McCoy exchanged an uneasy glance with Jim, refusing to look at Amanda and especially Saavik. His insides turned over on what past troubles Micar might have given her.

But the only thing that revealed to him how deeply she reviled the idea is how rigidly she responded with, "No. My interaction with the others has been limited. Through my own choice."

But limited because she didn't want to see past victims and offenders, or because she feared this old behavior would reappear?

"Eitan is just as bad," Jdehn cursed. She peered over at Amanda. "Insert colorful death here."

"We swore no retributions," Saavik said.

"Who said?" Mekhai growled.

Jdehn's fast comment, showing she was too focused on who'd she be facing in the Phase III ward, stopped anyone from replying to Mekhai. "Who else is alive?" She didn't know it, but her upper lip pulled slightly back, baring her teeth.

Without his tricorder, McCoy didn't know. Saavik spoke up, showing she avoided personal contact, but she knew who was in the ward. The other three scrolled through images, matching faces to the names she gave. "Strahinja, Kf'iskjyk, Komal--"

At Komal's picture, Arik froze, alert and haunted. Jdehn came out of her trance to reassure him, half-soothing, half-mocking. "It's okay, Arik. That was then, it's over. And you tower above Komal now. Besides, Mekhai is lean meat. She'd hone in on him before your bony ass."

Mekhai's yelling, "Shut up, Jdehn!" covered Kirk's sudden bout of coughing. The waiter was approaching their table, but paused stunned at the outburst, and then hurriedly scurried away at Amanda's friendly dismissal.

Arik wasn't laughing. "Still..."

Jdehn jabbed him again with a friendly elbow. "It'll be fine. We're not even in the same room as them. Right?" she asked McCoy. He nodded. "And remember, they're _different_."

An unconscious alliance took place. Jdehn, Arik, and Mekhai queasily anticipated facing their more Vulcan counterparts. They, who before couldn't even stand near each other in the lobby, now subtly united themselves against Saavik. She might have refused the genetic scan like they did, but she practiced Vulcan's ways and it was her home. She sat there in her Vulcan dress with its simple, clean, civilized lines… her single earring denoting an unbonded female… and her cool, composed appearance unwittingly drew a line in the sand.

For some reason he didn't understand, McCoy remembered the first time he saw her after Spock's death. In keeping with Vulcan custom not to wear adornments during mourning, the earring was gone and her hair cut out around her ears so she needn't wear pins to keep it back… and that look of carefully kept control.

That's what brought the image back now – that same look around the eyes.

Jdehn handed back McCoy's tricorder, and for all her bravado, suddenly returned to the cagey, mistrustful woman who had entered the restaurant. "I suppose we gotta go."

"If you're ready," he said.

Mekhai snapped, "I ain't ever ready for sittin' with that pack of--"

_Here we go again_, McCoy thought. "Son, listen to me--"

The other glared at him from the top of his eyes. "I ain't your son."

"Lucky for me. I'm just trying to tell you that this night doesn't have to be a battle."

"Watta you know about it!"

Kirk jumped in. "We don't. The only ones who know exactly what you went through are all of you. No one's saying anything different. But that doesn't mean we can't help in some ways."

McCoy leaned forward. "I'm only trying to give you this advice. You think the universe screwed you over, you're right. No one, I mean no one, should live like you had to. Did you get cheated? Absolutely, out of more than I care to think of. Do you have the right to be sore about it? Yeah, you do. But sooner or later you got to realize one thing: everything you lost is not coming back. You can rant and rave at the galaxy for the rest of your life, and all you'll get is regrets because you'll be on your deathbed still angry, still sore, and nothing to show for the part of your life you had control over. So go ahead and be pissed – I would -- just don't make it your whole life. That's all I have to say. Take the advice or forget I ever said it. Your choice."

Kirk spoke. "Let me add one more thing. Wait--" He held up a hand, and Mekhai subsided reluctantly. "When you see the people in the Phase III ward, or even looking at Saavik now, don't think they have it better than you. They don't. You said it yourselves -- they just have it differently. They have homes on Vulcan and everything that entitles them to, but only some of them are like Arik with good families. And Saavik went through more trials to get her citizenship than you can imagine."

She looked sharply at him, but said nothing.

"The same's true for all of them that study the disciplines. They get benefits from it, but it's not easy, and they face everyday what separates them from the Vulcans born and raised here. You made a different choice, the one that's best for you, and you may not have things they have here, but you're not face to face with the prejudice they are. It's why you live out in the neutral territories, isn't it?"

The three half-Romulans glanced at him and looked away.

"Isn't it? Because with the way you look and being emotional, you come too close to the core worlds, and people think the Romulans have invaded. So you stay out where it's safe. Bones' is right. It's not fair, but there it is. Just don't get angry because the grass looks greener on this side."

A few eyes darted at Saavik who appeared the epitome of Vulcan calm, and Arik's attention stayed the longest.

Mekhai, on the other hand... "Like you said, you know nuthin' about it."

McCoy's mouth pulled down at Kirk. "Well, Rome wasn't built in a day either. So, we'll leave for the hospital?"

They didn't bother answering. They were scared, frustrated, and ready to strike out with one emotion or the other. Amanda sat forward, ever gracious. "If I can be of any help, I teach at the Science Academy, and can be reached through my office there or at my home. You can reach Saavik there as well."

"Correction, I will be at the hospital," said Saavik.

Storm clouds crossed Amanda's blue eyes. "Excuse me?"

"I am staying at the hospital, at least until the house is complete."

_What house?_ McCoy wondered.

"We discussed this," Amanda said, staying in control.

"Yes, we did. Perhaps you did not hear me when I told you my plans."

The three half-Romulans looked back and forth between the two, confused, while Kirk and McCoy pointedly stayed out of it, knowing too well why Saavik was not coming to Spock's home.

Amanda was back to being human, an angry human. "Maybe I thought your plans were--"

"Amanda..."

Mekhai chuckled, and like any other time he had done it tonight, it wasn't a happy sound. "Keeps the leash tight, don' she?"

It jabbed at Saavik's defenses and it hit home. Her independence meant too much to her, and the implied weakness fractured her armor. For the first time, he scored over her and didn't stand down under the weight of her will. He moved no further either, but still glowed with the victory.

Saavik's voice hardened. "I am staying at the hospital. You may reach me there."

McCoy saw Amanda become acutely aware of their audience and her loss of ground. She still leaned over to whisper to him, "Pick a room, any room. I have to throw two Vulcans into it."

He knew she was trying to be funny, but she wasn't laughing anymore than he was.

The waiter approached the table again cautiously, clearing away the dishes. "Lady Amanda, I believe you have another guest?"

McCoy glanced behind the waiter, but it wasn't Amanda who got up to greet the newcomer. Saavik did. "Rrelthiz!"

The Carreon slipped by and almost leapt into the empty chair at the head of the table. "Friend Saavik! I was worried much on thinking you ill! So good to see you appear well." The relieved tones came through her Universal Translator along with her uniquely applied Standard grammar.

She removed a robe that looked damp like an old style Terran rain poncho. She dropped it on the back of her chair revealing the black skin striped with neon blue that covered all her slender form. She checked behind her and seeing it clear, she slipped her tail out of the belt loop where she had tucked it.

"I am quite well," Saavik answered, her voice smiling for her. "It is you I am concerned for. I appreciate your help, Rrelthiz, but you should not have come. Vulcan is too dry a world for you, even at night, and during the day, the detrimental affects from our sun on your skin's necessary moisture is too great."

"That is why I wore the cloak." The amphibious woman pulled it eagerly off the chair and carefully handed it to Saavik. "You can see that it contains an inner layer of the emollient I use. It secretes through the porous layer near my skin, and I carry more ointment to apply directly. Plus, this is Vulcan! You have much accommodations here for offworlders. Your friend said she would arrange a mud bath facility for me, and I will stay out of the sun." Her bright blue eyes, matching her skin stripes, glanced hopefully at Amanda.

Who smiled back at her. "So I said and so you should. I'm glad to meet you, Healer."

Saavik nodded slightly at the reminder. "I apologize, Rrelthiz, let me introduce you. Apparently you have spoken with Amanda."

"I was very glad she contacted me. She said you were unconscious."

"I was. However, we will address that later. You have met Dr. McCoy."

"Sorry indeed I feel to keep meeting you in troubled situations, Doctor, but I am glad you considered working with me."

He gave her an earnest smile. "I'm happy you're here, we all are. Every fresh set of eyes helps."

"Yes, indeed." The lazy to and fro of Rrelthiz's tail switched to quick, disturbed twitches. "I have read the data sent more repeatedly. We face a challenge. So many unrelated symptom stages rigidly scheduled for appearance, created against one group. I am anxious to see the scans in more detail. I would think such dissimilar phases need separate causes, not one. And surely this disease trigger would appear in scans — but this is talk for us later. Accept my apologies."

"Don't apologize. I'm eager to get back to it too. You didn't meet Jim before. Captain Jim Kirk, Dr. Rrelthiz of Carreon."

She made what McCoy learned was the formal bow to those considered honorable. "We have not met, but I know of you very well, Captain. I am pleased at this chance to see you face to face."

"Just Jim, please. I understand you saved a lot of people on the _Enterprise_ before."

The tail stilled. "That was a bad time, Jim. I caused that bad time and will never forget I did." She glanced back. "But Saavik gave me back my honor. I owe her my life."

She received arched eyebrows in return. "Rrelthiz, your tail."

"Whoops!" She rescued it from being stepped on by – or possibly tripping – a waiter, and stuck it back in its tail-guard loop next to the small storage pockets. She wore no other clothing besides the belt. "I have not been away from my nest-world in sometime. I must remember to be careful."

McCoy gestured to the remaining occupants at the table. "Rrelthiz, these are three of our patients. They just came in themselves. Arik, Jdehn, and that's Mekhai right next to you."

"They are like you, Friend Saavik?" Her slender snout pointed towards them as they stared at her curiously. The light, pleased tone she used up until now grew serious. "It is honored I am to meet you. Do not worry. Many good people are going to find a way to cure this disease. Then we will find whoever created such a wrong against you. They will make reparation for this."

"Reparation?" Jdehn asked.

"Perhaps we should not--" Saavik got no further since Rrelthiz was already answering the question.

"My people believe in honor which must include revenge for those who wrong us, as we make reparation for committing a wrong ourselves."

Mekhai's grin was feral. "I like you."

"That is good. We will work well together then." Rrelthiz's lidless eyes narrowed as they swept the room before settling back on Saavik. "But where is Captain Spock? I was most happy on thinking I would see him here."

Even McCoy didn't see any more of a reaction than Saavik drawing herself up straighter, but the Carreon's nostrils flared as if picking up something from the air. "What is it? Friend Saavik, if indeed I said something wrong--"

"Not at all," Amanda interjected smoothly. "My son is merely tied up with his research at the Science Academy or he'd be here."

_Would he_? McCoy wondered. _Just why did Amanda ask Jim and me to come with her and not Spock?_ Jdehn and the others sparked up by the thought of seeing their main rescuer again. Did Amanda know Saavik would never stay away as soon as she found out the other hybrids were coming to the dinner party? Because if so, Amanda knew this was no place for Spock and Saavik to meet head on, no matter how much the confrontation needed to take place.

Jdehn suddenly grabbed the table, holding herself utterly still, as Arik paled to a light green. Mekhai started jumping to his feet. "What the hell--"

"Not so fast!" McCoy warned.

Too late. Mekhai swayed on his feet and fell on Rrelthiz. Carreons were small in height, reaching only the shoulder of an average human, but their supple muscles were strong. Rrelthiz held Mekhai, carefully handling him with the seven sharp talons she had on each hand, as McCoy struggled free from his seat.

"Move, Jim!" His tricorder was out and passing over the half-Romulan. "Thought so. The vertigo is setting in. Same for you two?"

Jdehn mumbled, not wanting to move her head, while Arik nodded, not willing to open his mouth. Weakened physically, their alliance broke down as they cautiously eyed one another and especially the healthy Saavik.

McCoy gave her a hard glance too, thinking a suspicion he didn't want to think. Had she waited for this, defusing the problem with Mekhai by letting Phase I sap the danger from him? McCoy hoped not, he _really_ hoped not. He didn't want Hellguard coming that much back into her.

He watched her for some sign, anything, but she appeared normal. Until her head flung back and her lips parted.

Spock came through the door, but was so intent on McCoy bent over Mekhai, he never noticed her. "Doctor, what is the problem?"

Kirk vaulted over the bench seat. "Spock, did you bring a car? We got to get these three to the hospital fast!"

"I have one outside. However, we will need more than one for all of us--"

He saw her. They said nothing except with their locked stares.

Unaware of the situation, Rrelthiz called as she tussled with the fainting Mekhai, "Captain Spock, your help please!"

Blinking, he broke away, grasping Mekhai's other arm and slinging it around his shoulders. McCoy heard the Carreon's sibilant hissing without any translation from her Universal Translator until, "I will clear the path to the car and take a second one to the hospital!" Her clawed feet clicked on the tiled floor as she scurried out, calling for the waiters to help make a way out the door.

Stron and T'Mes were suddenly there, helping support the ill hybrids, and Soluk gathered the protesting Jdehn in his arms and hurried silently out the door. When McCoy looked up again, Saavik was gone.

* * *

The dark figure was gleeful.

At last they were all here. And eleven dead now. Better and better.


	6. Chapter 6

Thank you, Gryphaena, for saying such nice things about the story and the web site! I do wish more people enjoyed the story and maybe these two chapters will help with that.

* * *

**PHASE II**

_Orphan in the storm, that's a role I've played before. _

_I've learned not to tremble when I hear the thunder roar._

_I don't curse what I can't change, I just play the hand I'm dealt. _

_When they lighten up the rations, I tighten up my belt._

_I won't say I've never felt the pain. But I am not a stranger to the rain._

**Chapter 6**

The last stasis unit activated. Ten Vulcan-Romulan hybrids froze in time.

Spock stood next to Kirk behind a plexiglass window, watching as McCoy, T'Ahiyya, and Rrelthiz carefully checked each unit's readings once more. McCoy's face bore stubble and the dark circles under his eyes had returned. Rrelthiz's skin began to grow tight at the joints from drying, and even T'Ahiyya showed signs of tiring after the days' long shifts being pulled by the medical team.

But the ten worst cases were now safely kept from progressing any further. If only the disease's source and cure could be dealt with so easily.

He glanced around to the people gathered in the small observation room. Sorel stood across on the other side, finishing his briefing and opening the floor to questions. Spock had given a summary of his own research immediately before Sorel.

Each person here was a family member or friend of a hybrid now in stasis, and came here to support the person they knew as he or she prepared to – sleep, for lack of a better term. Once these family members and friends were enclosed in this room, they asked for updates on prognosis, treatment, and the search for a cause. That included the responsible party who created the disease. Spock wished he had more to tell them. The cursory search amongst prejudicial groups revealed nothing, and no word was heard yet from the Romulan sources. No one could make contact deep enough into the Empire to begin searching there. The agents buried amongst the Romulans couldn't be asked without it getting back to Starfleet or the Federation Council.

The only satisfaction found in this meeting so far was the fact so many willingly came out of sincere concern.

"We are beginning transfusion treatments today on two of the Phase III patients," Sorel reported. "In Strahinja's case, his cousin has volunteered and for Kf'iskjyk, her half-brother. We believe we will know if the transfusions have any chance for success within one day."

One Vulcan signaled he had a question. "What steps have been taken regarding security? As we have seen, the disease is a deliberate attack. Those responsible may choose a more direct method of violence in the future."

Spock chose to answer and indicated this to Sorel. "On your entrance today, you saw the precautions in place against such an event. All patient rooms including the ward and the stasis amphitheater are Restricted Access only and are under constant surveillance. We know this hinders your ability to see your family members and are gratified by your cooperation."

"Spock," another voice asked, an elderly woman. She rose to her feet with the assistance of her son, or possibly her grandson. However, once standing, she did so strongly on her own. "--do you believe the responsible party is here on Vulcan?"

All heads swiveled in his direction, but they were too disciplined to murmur amongst themselves. The question disturbed them and he knew why.

"We have not ruled out the possibility that the disease is caused by the Romulans and was instilled during birth or childhood for reasons unknown. If this theory proves true, anyone responsible is behind the Neutral Zone."

An almost imperceptible relaxing swept through them, except for Sorel who knew the rest.

"However, if the theory is false, then we believe at least part of the responsible group is here, whether it'd be Romulan agents or a prejudicial assembly within the Federation. The reason we believe this is obvious. The first hybrids attacked are those that live here."

The tension returned. Somewhere on peaceful Vulcan, killers hid themselves. Perhaps even the Sundered themselves.

The same woman pointedly looked at Kirk. "Is Starfleet involved?"

Even without his uniform, they knew whom he was and what he at least used to do. He stepped forward to answer her. He didn't smile as he usually would in these circumstances. With Vulcans, the gesture was pointless and perhaps condescending. "No, it's not. Dr. McCoy and I are here as a personal matter under Ambassador Sarek's special request. That is all that Starfleet Command and the Federation Council know about it. In addition, Dr. McCoy, Healer Rrelthiz, and I are the only non-Vulcans involved in this emergency, and we each have sworn privacy agreements." He didn't include Daniel Corrigan because the man was one of the Vulcans by citizenship, his commitment to Sorel, and his marriage to T'Mir. "We are generally on a 'need to know' basis."

Spock moved to speak, but it wasn't necessary. The woman said, "No one questions your integrity, James Kirk, son of..."

"George," he supplied.

"James, son of George, and I am gratified by your respect and understanding for my question."

As she sat, Kirk stepped back next to Spock. Now he smiled. "It took a few decades, but I got them eating out of my hand."

Spock raised an eyebrow.

The questions weren't over. A young Vulcan male stood. "Healer Sorel, I am curious. Certain items of the disease appear to parallel events in the lives of the hybrids. Have you noticed this and what do you believe it suggests?"

"We have noticed them," Sorel replied evenly, although suggesting they hadn't noticed bordered on rudeness. "Specifically the thirteen months following Phase II and how death is caused in Phase III. The latter and how it paralleled the hybrid deaths on Thieurrull was the first point we noticed."

Kirk whispered as quietly as possible to Spock. "The thirteen months?"

He replied, "The gestation period for a Vulcan pregnancy."

"Damn, that is interesting."

"However," Sorel continued, "we do not know why these parallels exist, especially as no equivalent has been found for Phase I."

"Surely two phases corresponding to actual events cannot be a coincidence?" the questioner argued.

"Most likely not."

"Then should not your resources focus on the Phase I parallel? If you discover it, you may find the cause."

"The thought occurred to us," Sorel replied.

The younger man took breath to speak again, but his family, as surreptitiously as possible, pulled him back into his seat.

Kirk grinned and spoke from the corner of his mouth. "Every group has an eager beaver."

Spock had a ready reply, but never said it as McCoy came close to the window and spoke over the intercom. "All the patients are stable, Sorel, and the units are working well."

The Vulcan healer asked if anyone else had a question, and when they didn't, everyone was excused. Quietly, the families and friends filtered out, some stopping for a moment at the window, even putting a hand on it, before leaving.

Kirk exhaled loudly. "Dammit, Spock, we have to find something!"

Spock followed into the amphitheater. Kirk didn't need to make that statement anymore than he needed to answer it. He did anyway. "Agreed."

The stasis unit displays glowed with the name of the person inside as well as their steady biosigns. The unconscious bodies, imprisoned physically and in time, combined with the medical sterility in the room to give off the atmosphere of a morgue.

McCoy ground the heels of his hands into his tired eyes. "I wish I felt like this was a victory."

"It is ten less deaths, Leonard. In our current situation, it is a victory." Sorel's calm steadied the others less so in the room. "I will check on our transfusion preparations. Leonard?"

"I'm checking on Jdehn, Arik, and Mehkai. They're coming out of Phase I today, and I'd like T'Ahiyya to come with me and run over their current status. You coming, Rrelthiz?"

Spock walked away from the Carreon's close proximity to the closest stasis unit and peered in at the sleeping form. He felt Leonard McCoy's knowing eyes follow him.

Rrelthiz spoke. "No, if you do not mind. Saavik's symptoms are indeed Phase II. It is expected, although I wished it otherwise." Her tail lashed in agitation. No one saw Spock straighten. "I will examine her. Perhaps she may show us something new, something we missed with the first ones. Some time has passed, after all, since they became ill with this."

Spock saw the dark, slumbering Sohan's face was finally at peace. Artificial, temporary, but peace. Spock thought of all it would take to make that tranquility permanent for Sohan and the others, and they were no closer to a solution, not one step.

And yet, putting aside his concern over the disease, Spock yearned for such peace himself.

Rrelthiz was too painful a reminder of the past, of that mission on _Enterprise_ where he had first met her. That mission was a turning point with an unknowing Saavik, and the later letter he purportedly received from her.

He recalled in vivid detail how she looked in the restaurant.

Did she not say anything then because she felt as he did, frozen in a moment where words could not be found? Or did she actually reject him? Despite lack of proof, he believed the theory behind the letters and cancelled transfer must be correct. And yet... did Saavik take this opportunity to keep him out of her life?

He could not explain even to himself how much that thought hurt. Better to think she was also at a loss over how to close their rift, how to heal the ugly gash still visible from the wall driven between them. Impossible to suddenly start speaking again as casually as if it never existed.

However, each day deepened the chasm and if one of them didn't make a move towards the other, it would broaden until it was insurmountable.

If she came to him, he would listen to whatever she said. If she didn't come to him –

What if... Some small inner voice whispered. What if they did heal their rift and she found out the truth in his letter? What if she _did_ reject him for real this time? That… he could not even think about.

"After the examination, Healer," Sorel said, "you must attend your mud baths."

Rrelthiz sighed with a hiss and a rattle of her tongue. "Drier than I thought, your air. I will attend myself, thank you, Sorel. Afterwards, I will join you. Tu'ong reports a possibility, correct?"

"Correct. We will meet you then."

The comm panel whistled, and Sarek's voice came over it. Kirk answered.

Sarek spoke immediately. "Is my son with you?" Spock's ears strained to detect the tone.

Kirk glanced over his shoulder and frowned. "Yes. We were watching the stasis process."

"I require his presence in my office."

It was an order. Kirk's eyebrows rose to the ceiling. "Is there a problem?"

Amanda's voice came over the panel, and Spock perceived her anxiety despite the careful way she spoke. "Commodore Paul Michan contacted us."

"And it has to do with Spock?"

"One piece of his news does. Spock, if you can hear me, it's important. We, we need to see you immediately."

Spock signaled agreement, and Kirk relayed it even as he silently said he was clueless as to what was going on.

McCoy snapped his fingers. "Jim, it's got to be about the transfer. You said you asked Michan to look into it."

Spock felt Kirk's probing gaze on him.

"But why ask for you?" Kirk wondered aloud.

"Could--" McCoy paused. "Could Michan have found out about you digging into the Neutral Zone? Or the bigots that may be behind all this?"

"Speculation," Spock said, "is illogical when we may discover the answer simply by going to Sarek's office."

"Good point. You coming, Bones?"

"No. I got work here, but let us know if they found the guilty party, Jim."

"Will do. Spock." Out of old habit, Kirk led the way out the door, and Spock followed with no word. His father's tone and his mother's anxiety played on his mind. He doubted this was caused by something as simple as Commodore Michan calling with news. After all, everyone involved with the disease expected the worst in regards to the people behind its creation. Surely his parents wouldn't react so strongly over expected information.

As soon as they entered the office, Spock knew his assumption was correct. Sarek was thunderous. He rarely saw his father this incensed, and his mother… Amanda's back was turned towards her husband, but at the sound of the door, she glanced quickly at Spock with so many fearful emotions, they ravaged the quiet in the room.

He made a leap to a conclusion, and his regimented mind clamped on it, filling in the necessary steps: Michan – the investigation -- Cartwright's records – Valeris – his parents' reaction.

He knew what this was. He thought the matter settled – he glanced at Kirk and corrected the thought. He had been convinced the matter was settled, but that was a mistake. He knew better than Jim about these matters, but when the issue never surfaced before, he illogically thought it was resolved.

Michan was on the comm station, waiting, and lit up on seeing Kirk move in front. "Got good news for you, Jim! I didn't just call with the bad stuff. I found the botched transfers."

_Plural?_ Spock thought.

Kirk was asking the same thing. "Transfers?" He stressed the ending 's'.

But Michan didn't hear it. "Yeah. The first one was done informally, right? Someone just told you they already had a replacement for Sulu ready to go."

"That's right," Kirk answered carefully.

Spock took a moment to check his father. Sarek paid no attention to the current conversation, and the dark clouds still filled his expression. Amanda had turned away, her arms clutching herself.

Michan was talking. "No paper trail ever got started because the transfer was killed so early. Seems we got a request from a Vulcan family asking that the transfer not go through. They had ties pretty high up, and at the same time – wait, oh here it is. Cartwright notes that Lieutenant Valeris had just started as Captain Spock's protegeé. Long story short, they put through the Vulcan family's request, gave you somebody else, and when it was time, cancelled the second transfer more officially and got it all set up for this Valeris to come on board."

Kirk glanced around, and when no one said anything, asked the question himself. "What Vulcan family?"

Michan remembered just in time that his connection was in Sarek's office. "Uh… excuse me if I don't say this right. Ub – ekwlk—

Spock saved him the trouble, pronouncing it flawlessly. For the first time, Sarek and Amanda paid attention.

Michan sighed in relief. "That's it."

"Whose family is that?"

"Valeris'," Amanda answered.

Kirk was more surprised than they were. "Would they do that?"

"Yes," Spock said.

"Why?"

Sarek replied. "Valeris and her family are… estranged. If she sought their help with a path that took her off Vulcan, they would agree. More likely, she simply used their name and connections to put the request through."

Spock waited. This was not the problem his father called him here for. It was only a temporary reprieve.

Still, he felt the pain surrounding this new revelation. Saavik was betrayed not once, but twice by Valeris, someone she at one time considered a friend. In fact, Saavik brought Valeris to him, and by doing so, without them knowing it, their rift was put into motion.

Possibly helped by Valeris' family who did it to be further rid of her. He almost… _almost_ felt pity, which meant a great deal with the weight of her crimes on the other end of the scale. Then, as he thought again of what Michan must have said earlier, he felt shame.

And they now had proof about Saavik's innocence at the expense of finding more treachery.

Michan said, "So both cancelled transfers came from the same source, more or less. The first one apparently brought Lieutenant Valeris to Cartwright's attention. That led to the second one, but I'm guessing different reasons for them though. I mean, we don't think the conspiracy went back that far, so I don't know why the first happened."

_I do_.

Kirk picked up on his silence, and saved his obvious question for later. "You said you had bad news earlier, Dave."

"Yeah. I gave it to Ambassador Sarek. If you don't mind, I think he should give it to you, and he might as well play Captain Hunter's message for you too. You'll understand in a minute, Jim, and when you do, you'll know why Hunter is tearing everyone a new – uh, set of ears."

"Okay, Dave. And thanks for all your work. I owe you."

"Yeah, you do. See ya, Jim." The signal cut off.

Kirk straightened up from the computer station. "Hunter's message?"

Spock knew his parents had other things in mind, but at the mention of Captain Hunter, a new stricken look came over Amanda before she controlled it, and with a resigned expression, Sarek brought up the recorded call from the _Aerfen_'s captain.

Hunter was at her desk, looking into the recorder with an expression that Kirk once warned Spock about: "Trust me, you'd better duck and cover if she's aiming it at you". Judging by her voice, Spock agreed with the description.

"I'm not sure who's getting this. Dr. Aakheltok estimates Saavik is in Phase II by now and this message won't reach her directly. I just heard from Starfleet Command. In their _wisdom_, they are placing Saavik on the inactive duty list. They say she cannot return here after Phase II or at any other time. They _regret_ the decision, but an ill officer is seen as a liability to herself and her shipmates. I argued very loudly that she has thirteen months of perfect health before Phase III strikes, but they think they're doing a good thing, giving her the time off instead of her working. And it gets worse." Her mouth screwed into a firm, angry line. "Because she's listed as inactive, she's been taken off the promotion list. _Again!_ I'm screaming at everyone I can, but both decisions look irrevocable. With everyone sifting through the whole Cartwright fiasco, I can't get them to make this a priority. I'm not giving up, but I can't give any hope either." Here Hunter's expression lost its anger to real sadness. "If you prefer, I'll tell Saavik myself. Just let me know when's a good time. Meanwhile, we hate to do it, but… We're getting her belongings together and shipping them home. Please tell her… whether you want me to tell Saavik about the inactive duty status or not, we _will_ be contacting her. It's important to us that she knows that."

Spock couldn't believe it. Starfleet may think they were doing right by Saavik, giving her the thirteen months to do whatever she wanted before falling too ill, but he had no doubts that the one thing she wanted was to go back to her ship. Starfleet's goodwill gesture was another blow on top of everything else negative happening to her.

"I'll tell her," Amanda suddenly said.

"No, it's all right. I will," Kirk said. His voice was as heavy with sympathetic sadness as Amanda's. "I've had to break Starfleet bureaucratic news before. I can tell her about Michan's findings at the same time. Maybe that'll help."

Sarek rose from his desk, and the way his expression once more settled into troubled lines told Spock the moment was finally here. "Thank you for your offer, Jim. If you will handle this matter now, I will speak to my son regarding the other issue."

Kirk's mouth twisted in a grimace at himself. "I forgot. Michan said he had other news. Is it something I can help with?"

"It is best handled privately. I am sure you will understand."

"Father," Spock interrupted calmly, "there is no need for privacy. Captain Kirk was on hand for the matter you wish to discuss."

"Do not assume you know what the difficulty is, Spock. It is grave, although I believe it untrue."

"It is in regards to Valeris, am I correct? And my actions against her."

Kirk jumped, startled. "What actions? What's going on?"

Amanda took a step forward, entreating him. "Spock..."

"He already knows, Father."

No one said anything, and the silence dragged on as Sarek and Spock stared at each other until Kirk almost burst.

At length, Sarek reported flatly, "Valeris is being extradited to Vulcan where she will be held for trial. In its initial investigation, the Starfleet task force discovered an alleged charge of Spock forcing a meld on her." Without a change of voice or appearance, Sarek very much conveyed a father urgently needing to hear his son's innocence. "Is it true?"

"Yes, it is."

Amanda gasped and took his arm with shaking hands. "Spock, no!"

Sarek asked him harshly, "Do you realize Valeris could bring charges of rape against you?"

Spock replied, "I do."

Sarek's voice tightened. "And do you realize the penalties?"

"I do. And I accept the responsibility for my crime."

"Wait a minute!" Kirk protested. "Spock did what was necessary. I even ordered him to do it."

Amanda cried out, "Jim!"

He whirled, still not seeing the problem. "I needed that information! It was vital for us to get to the peace conference!"

"Did you protest the order?" Sarek asked Spock.

"No, Father, I did not. And if you are asking if I acted out of illogic from Valeris' betrayal, I did. I learned the horror of that mistake in her pain, and I had a healer sent to her as soon as possible. However, none of that changes the situation, and I accept the penalties for it."

Kirk interrupted again. "But he had to do it!"

"Did you try to get the information any other way?" Sarek thundered. "A truth serum or other means?"

"Vulcans are known to be immune to most means of questioning. And I wasn't going to resort to torture."

"Except I did torture her," Spock said. He gripped his folded hands tight behind his back. How did he _ever_ see what he had done differently?

"Spock!"

"I will not make the situation worse by lying."

Kirk simmered, looking for a way out. "What does Starfleet say?"

"The same as you," Sarek answered, far from agreeing. "The action was declared a necessary duty for the security of the _Enterprise_ and the Federation."

"And Vulcan?"

"Will be informed when Valeris and the investigation report arrives in two point five three hours. If Valeris brings charges against Spock and he is found guilty, he will face the penalty."

Kirk's hands were balled into fists. "What kind of penalty?"

"Mental rape is our most grievous crime. It is equal with murder. The penalty may be incarceration for life with or without rehabilitation, or death by tal'shaya."

Amanda's tear streaked face looked up at Spock. She finally asked the question written on her husband's face since this began. "How could you?"

He couldn't soothe her. "I do not know, Mother."

Jaw clenched, Kirk asked desperately, "What can we do?"

Spock saw the struggle behind Sarek's eyes. Vulcan justice was clear: if Spock was guilty, he must be punished. His father knew it. Added to this was the shocking disbelief of what his son had done, something so reprehensible even Sarek's strong intellect didn't fathom it.

"We will wait."

Spock couldn't believe what he just heard. Sarek was not turning him over to the authorities, as he should do.

"Valeris may believe as you do and not bring action," his father continued.

_Unlikely._

"If she does," Kirk contended, "can I make a case to the Vulcan tribunal so they see my points? Let me get McCoy when his shift is over tonight and we'll go over everything. It must mean something that Starfleet has cleared Spock!"

"We shall see," Sarek replied, but he clearly didn't believe it.

A pall settled over them as stifling and scalding as being trapped on the Forge. Amanda broke away from Spock, and he saw painfully that her eyes never touched on him again.

"I had better give Saavik her message." She fled the room.

Saavik left the shower, pulling a towel around her, and exited into the quiet sterility of her hospital room. Since the shower was sonic, not water, she had no need to dry herself, and yet she still scrubbed at her skin. Smoothly at first and then with increased briskness until her skin burned light green. Impatiently, she stripped out of the towel and flung it in a corner, snatching a clean robe and shrugging into it. She grabbed the dirty workout clothes from her run this morning and shoved them with the towel down the laundry.

She never expected Phase II to bother her so quickly. Meditation and exercise kept it under control initially, but now the reprieves grew shorter and shorter. The alleviation from her morning meditation lasted for a few hours until restlessness sent her into a blistering run that had exhausted her. Thinking herself free of it for the rest of the day, she had started a research project she was interested in for months now, only to have the twitchy impatience return. She escaped outside again, requesting a simulator to test a theory stirring in her mind since awakening from Phase I.

She picked up the padd with her simulator results and skimmed over them. She kept hearing Warfield's voice explaining to Captain Hunter: _she fell like the ship had been hit with our shields down_.

She suddenly realized she was pacing.

Agitation rising, she forced herself in a chair, invoking a strong calming technique. She was _not_ going to give into this so easily.

At least she was alone. Rrelthiz had left for her mud bath after giving Saavik yet another physical. Of course, the Carreon didn't know about pon farr, so this phase held no special emphasis... a pleasant difference from the Vulcan healers.

Until later, when she would be in the throes of it -- did she want Rrelthiz to see her that way? They had shared a great deal about themselves, but the thought of her friend seeing her in the throes of… not that the Carreon would judge. But better to return to the careful knowing and understanding care from the Vulcan medical staff at that point, and leave how base and primitive she could be as only words between she and Rrelthiz.

Although, Rrelthiz might have guessed all this, judging by her statement as she left: "Friend Saavik, I _am_ indeed coming back, do not doubt it."

When exhaling shuttered with building tension, Saavik appreciated all over again the blessed solitude of her room.

_I need only endure these next few days_. That thought as much as the technique itself calmed her. _A few days more and I will return to my ship_. So much would be better left behind. No more survivors from Hellguard appearing, stirring up things best left forgotten. No more starving faces dying like they had so long ago. No more Spock so close and so far away. Back to the stars, back to their peace. It was all she wanted.

Amanda entering the room interrupted her thoughts. Saavik immediately protested.

"Amanda, we have already discussed you no longer coming here."

Amanda paid no attention to this, but sat on the bed. She leaned over so she may lay a hand on Saavik's chair arm, giving a sense of closeness without upsetting the Phase II condition further with touch. "We have to talk."

Saavik saw the red rimmed eyes, and caught the strong scent of recently applied soap. Very recently applied. Amanda had been crying and then had washed the evidence of it away.

"Captain Hunter sent a message. You're already speculating that it's not good news, so I won't draw this out. Starfleet... Starfleet has put you on the inactive duty list. Hunter is fighting the decision--"

Saavik felt the words strike her like an ultrasonic wave, hitting her skin, then penetrating to deeper, more tender areas, leaving nothing untouched by its beating. Not to return to her ship...

"-- She hates that they did this to you, but they feel it is the best choice for everyone. You have this time to do whatever you want-"

...To leave the burgeoning friendships behind with no goodbye...

"—but because of your duty status, your promotion--"

...Not to sail amongst the stars again...

"—Hunter and the others will contact you soon, they wanted you to know that --"

...To be declared already dead.

Outrage and despair pushed at her emotional controls like battering rams. The calm she so recently regained threatened to collapse, and she turned her face away from Amanda.

"Saavik," the other woman began and then subsided.

A scream of rage threatened to escape her throat, and she jolted to her feet. "You should go," she said hoarsely. She inhaled slowly and held it until she could release it with no tremble. "I appreciate your bringing me this news--"

"Stop. I don't want to hear the rest of that sentence."

"As I do not want to cause you further trouble."

"I know what you'll say. 'I am quite capable of managing the situation for myself.'"

Saavik could not bear Amanda's kindness, not on top of controlling what already hazarded to escape. "As I know you will say, 'I can manage the problem with my son.'"

The sharp intake of breath behind her was loud in her ears. She failed to notice before how small Amanda appeared in her robes, so different from her usual strong presence. And despite the deep sympathy in the teardrop burned eyes, no more weeping threatened.

Something else caused Amanda's tears. Something had shaken her horribly.

"Amanda, what are you not telling me?"

Amanda reeled back before a mask was hastily conjured. "Nothing in particular. The whole situation is difficult enough without them doing this to you."

"I agree. I do not -- I had not counted on this. However, you are diverting me from what is troubling you."

The other woman crossed to the window behind the chair where the growing evening spilled twilight into the room. "We heard of another problem. Don't concern yourself."

"Whatever has caused you this distress concerns me."

Amanda looked over her shoulder in gratitude, but she continued to refuse. "It's personal."

But Saavik's own problem was forgotten at the moment, her outrage dampened by her concern. Amanda's injury silently begged for attention and was more important. "If you truly wished not to discuss this, you would leave instead of remaining." The room echoed with the quiet until it hurt the ears. She thought over her words that caused Amanda's reaction. "Is it Spock? Does he make it difficult for you because of your visiting me?"

She waited for Amanda's usual response that Spock had visited her; she surprised herself by realizing how much she wanted to hear it again.

Instead, a small, remorseful laugh was the reply. "I long for the days when you two were my big problem."

"It is worse?"

"Saavik, you… don't want to know this."

"Amanda, with all I have seen in my life, you cannot shock me." Another sad noise followed by silence again. "You know I will respect your privacy."

A sob hitched Amanda's shoulders and caused her hands to grab the windowsill, but her head stayed unbowed. A voice barely her own strained out, "I know." She left the window and fell in a controlled crumple into the chair.

Aghast, Saavik crouched in front of her, putting her hands on either chair arm as if she sought to make a shield between the world and the older woman.

"Tell me," she pleaded to be let in.

Amanda sat rigid in the seat, and her words came out haltingly. "Spock... mentally... raped Valeris."

Saavik crashed to her knees, not feeling the hard collision with the tile floor jarring both bones and nerves. Nor did she hear her own ragged moan. Her head sagged, but she wasn't aware that Amanda's did too until one of the now flowing, unchecked tears dropped onto her cheek.

Saavik came back to her senses, and saw the bent, gray head almost touching hers. _What do I do? How do I help her? _ She had no idea. She knelt there dumbstruck and listened to the dam unleashed.

"I can't believe it. Not Spock, not my son. How can he be capable of such a thing? How! I keep thinking of his being so gentle, and – it can't be true. But he admits it! He did... that... how could he? Not even when he was younger and got so... angry with the others teasing him... but that's not like this. Not Spock. He wouldn't--" The sobbing racked Amanda's small frame.

Saavik struggled for words or an action. _Perhaps bringing Sarek?_ With how this must be affecting him, he would want his wife—

Amanda suddenly straightened, wrestling control over her hysteria. She still cried quietly, but she held herself up. "I'm appalled he did this, I couldn't even look at him. But he's my child! And I'm afraid they'll order... tal'shaya..." She bit her lips and rocked in the chair.

_Tal'shaya!_ "Amanda! When did a Vulcan tribunal meet on this?"

"They haven't. Valeris is arriving soon. She's being tried under our judicial system here. Jim and Sarek hope she won't bring action, but why shouldn't she? He did it, he's guilty. He _forced a meld_! If she doesn't bring charges tonight, then tomorrow or whenever they begin their investigation here. If she had just told Jim what he wanted to know-- if he had tried any other way to get the information!"

"I do not understand. What part does Captain Kirk play in this?"

Gathering herself with a visible effort, Amanda explained everything she knew.

Spock once noted of Saavik, as a compliment, that she had a ruthlessly logical mind. Perhaps that was what made everything clear to her even as the emotions from Phase II grew. She pushed aside everything but two facts:

Spock's future depended on _if_ Valeris pressed charges. And second, Valeris was now here on Vulcan.

Saavik hovered close to the woman bowed and forlorn before her. _Perhaps a cool cloth _and wiping the hot tear tracks away, but if she didn't stay in front of the chair, Amanda might fall.

Unsure, she took the cuff of her robe's sleeve and wavering, brushed Amanda's cheek with it. Amanda unexpectedly grabbed her hand and held in a frantic grasp, so she stayed still as Amanda leaned hard into the touch.

Saavik swallowed. "Forgive me. Emotional support is not one of my strengths."

That earned her a small smile. "You're doing all right."

"I'd prefer knowing how to do more."

"You could stop chasing me away whenever I come to visit."

"It was for your benefit," she answered softly.

She was more than concerned. She was afraid. When Spock died in Khan's attack years ago, Amanda suffered a collapse; even following his rebirth, healers warned her to lighten her schedule and her stress levels. She defied them by returning to what looked like full health, but times such as these showed the toll of those dark days.

"Amanda." Saavik raised the eyes to hers. "Heed me. I know Valeris--"

"I warned you about her!"

"I know."

"No, you don't. Commodore Michan found out she was behind both your transfer cancellations."

_Another unwelcome surprise. _"Both?"

"She had her family use its influence to stop the first one or she just lied and used their name, we don't know. But even then she was maneuvering her way onto _Enterprise_. And now my son's future, his _life_, is in her hands! She'll destroy him."

"Amanda--"

"She doesn't have your heart. She never will."

"An arguable point, however not the current one I wish to make."

"The hell it's arguable."

Saavik frowned. "Do not use such language. It does not suit you."

"_You're_ telling _me_ that? That might be the only amusing thing I heard all day." The slight smile immediately died.

Saavik now returned Amanda's grip on her hand. "Amanda, listen to me. Spock is safe, do not be concerned. The situation will be resolved favorably. Trust me."

_I will need help._ Her mind rapidly went through the possibilities, matching person to need: Rrelthiz. She sighed to herself. _After promising myself to keep my darker nature during Phase II from showing in front of her, I will do exactly that after all._

Amanda's tears threatened again and she wiped them angrily away with her other hand, still holding Saavik's with the other. "I do, you know I do. But you can't make that guarantee."

She gazed back evenly. "Yes, I can."


	7. Chapter 7

McCoy's eyelids dragged down and back up again as if the surface of his eyes was sandpaper. A simple blink lasted too long and created no more moisture than before. His vision blurred from being unclean, and the patient chart in front of him stayed unreadable. He strained, but it remained a haze.

"Bet you can use this, Len." Daniel Corrigan held out a damp, cool cloth with a small bottle of eyedrops as he clapped him on the shoulder with his other hand.

"Thanks, you don't know how much." McCoy wiped his eyes first, squeezing some of the solution into his eyes, and blinked until he felt the sandpaper gone and everything snapped back into focus. Then he scrubbed his face and neck. It felt great until he stopped and all the parts not cleaned, like his sweaty back, felt worse in comparison.

Corrigan looked just as bad: beard stubble, what hair he had in a mess from running fingers through it, hospital scrubs sticking to him from sweat not quite as bad as McCoy's. He had lived a lifetime on Vulcan and was adjusted to the heat. And to the increased gravity, so his muscles probably didn't feel like tired mush like his fellow human's.

_Can't air-condition the ward to Terran levels_, McCoy thought. _Not when the patients like it at this temperature._

And nothing could be done about the gravity.

Daniel suddenly stared at him, making him fidget. "C'mon, Len, let's get you someplace cooler. You're turning gray." He glanced with more than a little humor at the head nurse. "And T'Ahiyya must be ready to complain about how bad we smell."

"I am too polite to do so, Doctor." She took the stack of patient charts from both of them. "Plus I am using a nasal inhibitor."

Corrigan winked. "Now that's a hint."

"I'll take that hint in one second, Daniel. Let me grab Micar's chart--"

"Completed, Doctor," T'Ahiyya said. "Nor does Micar want to be interrupted at the moment."

McCoy watched as Micar furiously painted his mural on the right wall. Any patients on that side of the room moved to the beds made empty by death and stasis on the left-hand side. The wall painting took shape in the faces of all the hybrids, starting with those that died and coming to those in stasis, Micar concentrating to the point where he knew nothing else. Those alive and awake, including the artist himself, were currently not sketched, but McCoy knew they were coming, joining the everyone else displayed amongst the foothills of Vulcan's mountains, their forms emerging from the rock, their backs to the desert. The sight, despite showing the hybrids in good health, gave McCoy the chills even in the ward's heat.

Elfin Pekhi, the inquisitive Nizar with a sideways glance as if just noticing the visitors, Sohan with his hair curling around his collar next to the black skinned, somber, physically intimidating Strahinja, also in stasis – twenty one faces of the dead and suspended, some figures uncompleted, all gazed at him… almost saying something.

McCoy shook his head at himself. Now he imagined a painting was talking to him.

Why couldn't the living be painted first? he wondered. Fill in the spot next to Pekhi that was obviously left for Vi'hai, so husband and wife would be joined in art as they were in life.

McCoy was standing at the foot of Vi'hai's bed as he slept, Phase III beginning its brutal ravaging of the young man's features. The privacy walls around his bed were open so he could wander into sleep while gazing at his late wife in the painting. Other nights, they were just as firmly shut when he could not bear the sight.

Leonard McCoy watched the other patients, those that were visible. Half were asleep, and the others had visitors or watched the mural unfold. He looked harder at the visitors, and recognized the anthropologists that had haunted the hallways since his arrival.

_Goddamned vultures! These people aren't an experiment!_

But they were, created by the Romulans to serve some unknown purpose, and infused with a language and culture forged by their brutal childhood and survival. Anthropologists and linguists studied such things, just as he studied the hybrids' reactions to tests.

_But I'm doing it for their health!_

And the anthropologists did it so the unique cultural subset would not be lost to death. He knew it, but he didn't have to like it.

"Doctor McCoy." He looked at T'Ahiyya and envied her calm. Damn, maybe he should have Spock teach him that meditation. "I advise you accept Dr. Corrigan's suggestion."

McCoy glanced at Daniel and suddenly grinned. "She's pushing me out the door, isn't she?"

"Both of us. We're getting in the way." Corrigan stretched his neck, and tired muscles popped and cracked. His smile faded as abruptly as McCoy's just came. "C'mon, Len. I need a drink."

McCoy folded his arms across his chest in the best, stubborn body language he knew. He liked this head nurse with her clinical mind and exotic looks. A few days never would equal the rapport he had with Christine Chapel, both when she was his head nurse and later as a fellow physician, but T'Ahiyya hopefully was used to humans. "I'll go if you go."

Her eyebrows rose in thought as if he asked her to consider a particular treatment for the patients. "Agreed." She turned to where her next shift of nurses were coming in and gestured for two to come over. S'Faia and T'Paevana did so, and took the patient charts and the orders for their shift. That included making sure the intensely absorbed Micar finished the high-energy biscuits and vitamin drink currently neglected next to his paint palette.

"Care to join us?" McCoy asked T'Ahiyya as they started leaving.

"I appreciate your invitation, Doctor, however I must decline. If I am to rest from my work, I will use the time to see my family."

Corrigan said boisterously, "Excellent priorities! Ones I'm going to copy as soon as I'm done chatting with Len and grab a shower before going home. I know you're being too polite, T'Ahiyya, because _I_ can't stand my smell! Definitely can't go home with those sensitive noses about the place."

They parted company from the head nurse and headed for Corrigan's office. McCoy protested it wasn't necessary to lower the temperature any more from the existing coolness, but Daniel insisted as he poured them both drinks.

"It'll feel good to me too. I may be adjusted to Vulcan temperatures, but I still need to crank the air conditioning up once in a while." He dropped into his padded desk chair, took a deep swallow from his glass, and gave a heavy, tired sigh. "What do we think we're doing, Leonard?"

The sudden switch in topic threw him off, but McCoy made a great effort to answer a question plaguing him more and more. He finished his swallow. "We're doing what we can, Daniel. We're treating the malnutrition with everything we got. The nutritional drinks, the standard porridges, the high-energy biscuits and cakes. For the dehydration, all the combinations of sugar, salt, honey, and water are given regularly. Vitamins by the shipload are going down their throats as well. Milk and milk products are cut out because they're severe on the systems already hurt – Saavik, Jdehn and the other two should be okay with it though." He sat forward, arms on his knees, and his drink cradled in both hands. "The damnable thing – and I know this is what you're talking about – is, you can't cure malnutrition or dehydration when there's an underlying disease causing them. You got to get rid of the disease, and that's what we keep banging our heads on."

Daniel sat in silence before giving a sudden, weary grin. "Actually, I meant why are we drinking booze when our bodies really need water?"

McCoy stared at him before bursting out in laughter, throwing back his head and using the motion to flop deep in the couch. He stayed that way, staring up into the ceiling as his chuckle petered out. "You know what, Daniel?"

An answering chortle reached him. "What?"

"That joke wasn't even funny, but--"

"But it was good to laugh."

"Yeah."

Corrigan chuckled again, weaker this time, and drank again from his glass. "Yeah... but now that you opened the can of worms..."

"Thanks a lot."

"Len, what the hell are we going to do? Keep going over the same tests hoping for a miracle, or prod these poor people for more samples? Now we're sealing them up in stasis until we find a cure. What happens if we don't? Do we keep them in there forever or do we take them out to die?" Daniel rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "I just read Rrelthiz's report – did you see it? She's nailed it, Len. No manmade disease – excuse the prejudicial word 'manmade' – but no such disease doesn't leave tracks! Especially one with such a long term and with vastly different stages! Where the hell is the trigger or triggers that tells the body it's time to go into one phase or the other? Something that complex, it's _got_ to show! But we've found nothing -- nothing! No virus, no bacteria, and no chemical signature of any kind."

"Daniel, you're preaching to the choir. That's why we both look like crap and we drinking booze instead of water and why we won't leave the hospital even though we've got nothing more to do right now."

Corrigan picked up one of the family holos adorning his desk. He looked beaten. "We can't give up and we're scared to death that's exactly what's going to happen. That someday we're going to swallow the very bitter realization that all thirty-three of our patients are going to die of this thing, and we can't do a thing to save them." He drained his glass. So did McCoy. "I'm older than you, Len. I've learned a hundred different times the painful lesson that a doctor isn't a god who can cure anything. Every time, I hate it more."

McCoy raised his head enough to see the other doctor. He forgot sometimes that Corrigan was somewhere around forty years older. And that he looked younger than that because his and Sorel's neural regeneration system had healed him years ago with the side effect of shaving decades off his appearance. More importantly, it had saved Corrigan's life, and with that second chance, this balding, round little man found out that Sorel's little girl, the same one he had first met when she tormented the family sehlat that was babysitting her, was a woman all of a sudden. A very desirable woman who, miracle of miracles, had picked him out as her husband back when she was a teenager.

But Daniel was right; that miracle didn't change the hard fact that sometimes patients died, and doctors and nurses couldn't do anything about it.

"I hate it as much you do, Daniel, and I wish to God I knew the answer. I only have a few more days here and then Starfleet will pull me out."

Corrigan put the picture back in its honored place amongst the others. "Tell them you need more time."

"I tried. Things are a mess, and it's hard getting anyone to listen to anything. Besides, what good have I done here?"

Deep frown lines folded Daniel's brow. "Don't even think like that, Len. You're a good doctor, you know it. We need you here."

McCoy mumbled a thank you, but inside, he keenly felt his helplessness. "As for what do we do, I think it's in the hands of Jim, Spock, and Sarek. We need them to find out who's behind this! If we find them, we can get the cure out of them."

"_If_ they made one. That's a big if."

"They created a trigger, they can tell us what it is and we'll remove it. I got to believe that, Daniel."

The desk chair creaked as Corrigan pushed back in it, an arm flung over his forehead. "Yeah, I know. Ignore me." He put his feet on the desk, settling in for a longer discussion. "I hope they find whoever it is soon. I'm betting it's some pack of bigots in the Federation. The Romulans abandoned the hybrids. Why should they care now?"

McCoy swished the ice cubes in his glass. They banged together before whipping around in a vortex with the dregs of his drink. "I'm actually thinking the opposite. I can't give you the reason why the Romulans care now -- maybe they just want to remove the last signs of what they did years ago. But I can't settle on it being a hate group for one reason. If some group is wiping them out because they hate half-Romulans running around the Federation, why hasn't that hate spread to the team that brought them here? But no one's attacked Spock or Sarek or Salok... none of them."

Corrigan's head faced him, and he got suddenly more excited. "That's a damn good point, Len. A bigot doesn't just attack the people they hate. They attack anyone who helps their victims or, in this case, the people who brought the hybrids here instead of letting them die in the Empire."

McCoy nodded. "And how does this pack of bigots know how the hybrids died on Hellguard anyway? That's classified information." He felt a sudden, sharp stab of worry about revealing too much, and then remembered Daniel had clearance.

Corrigan crunched on an ice cube. "You got something there. Have you told Sarek or Jim this?"

"No, I haven't really thought about it in the front of my head until now. But I will. They can see if it means something." He rubbed his stiff neck. "What do you think, Daniel? One more drink and I let you go home?"

"While you what? Go back to the ward until you're so annoying that the nurses throw you out again?"

McCoy snorted. "You know, I'm beginning to envy Vulcan disciplines. You don't see them here moping and drinking."

Corrigan sat up in his chair, smiling. "No, that's true. They talk theories and data until they even get tired of themselves." The door opened and Daniel winked at McCoy. "S'ad, Tu'ong, come in. Can I get you something?"

They each replied no and took the offered seats. S'ad joined McCoy on the couch, as always sitting straight and proper on the edge of it while Tu'ong settled into the full comfort of a chair. McCoy took advantage of their silence to ask if the geneticist had found anything. "Sorel and Rrelthiz mentioned something of the sort."

"Of the sort is a proper way to word it," she said. Being Vulcan, her unwavering expression told him nothing, not even with all he knew about reading Spock. "We discovered the genetic coding behind a glandular release of an extreme amount of a natural chemical stimulus."

He eagerly sat forward. "What chemical stimulus?" In the next second, her answer made him slump back in the couch. Nothing more than the Vulcan -- and supposedly Romulan -- equivalent of adrenaline. S'ad, with a healer's curiosity not offset with something as emotional as disappointment, asked what Tu'ong's finding meant.

"We hypothesize that an increased capacity for hostility is keyed into each hybrid's genetics to be released under extreme provocation."

_They can get angry, really angry_, McCoy silently translated. _Blind berserker kind of angry._ His depression deepened. The only thing they found in a long time, and it was that the hybrids could be triggered into a tremendous sense of rage or hyper predatory state.

_Just great._

S'ad spoke to him in the same methodical voice as before. McCoy knew what the question was going to be and wished the Vulcan wouldn't ask it. "Doctor, you have experience with the hybrids before this medical crisis. Have you seen evidence of this?"

He had experience with Saavik and he had Spock's memories in his head. He'd rather choke on his tongue before telling what he knew.

"Most of the hybrids live here. All of you can better answer that question than me."

Thankfully, neither S'ad or Tu'ong saw through his deception, but the way Daniel was looking, McCoy knew the other human understood what he just did.

Corrigan changed the subject. "The important point is that we still have nothing that shows us a cause or a cure. I'd give everything I own if somebody would give me even a half-baked suggestion."

In the following expected questions from the Vulcans on what half-baked meant and why Corrigan would want such a thing, McCoy saw Sorel coming up the hall with Srre tagging along.

The medical team's leader stopped in the doorway as he caught sight of everyone. "Did we have a meeting scheduled?"

"No," Corrigan answered. "All roads just led to my doorstop. C'min, Sorel. Give us some good news."

The Vulcan was long used to his partner's mannerisms, so he said nothing about them as he took the chair directly across from Corrigan's. He too refused a drink, which McCoy instantly wished had turned out otherwise. He wanted to refill his glass but wasn't going to be the only one.

Srre still stood in the doorway and glanced around the assembly. "I believe we better serve our purpose by other means than sitting here."

McCoy wasn't the only one to look up at the medical student -- even the more experienced Vulcans gave their younger colleague a stare -- but he was the one to speak up first. "Son, you got to learn when your patients need see you, when you're driving them crazy, and when you're driving all of the staff crazy."

"I do not understand."

Sorel spoke in Vulcan, obviously giving the same advice, while McCoy told himself he had to stop thinking of Srre as a boy; he wasn't. In fact, he was older than McCoy had been when he signed up for Starfleet and met Jim Kirk. Actually, Srre was older than any med student he had ever come across. He wondered why.

"I started at a later age," Srre answered. "I took my preliminary studies at the same time others in my age group did, but I left before starting my residency to study Kolinahr."

"Kolinahr?" McCoy repeated surprised. Srre wore no symbol of even a student of Gol.

He nodded. "I schooled there for 5.62 years, taking part in the most evolved disciplines. I found them--"

McCoy braced himself.

"--fascinating."

"And you left that for med school?" McCoy saw the subtle shift in the other Vulcans. "Now it's my turn to apologize. I didn't mean to invade your privacy, Srre."

"You did not, Doctor. You asked a normal question. I did not leave my Kolinahr studies. I failed them." He paused and McCoy swore silently not to ask, but Srre explained anyway. "I failed because I discovered my prejudice against my half-brother and those like him. I blamed him for my father's ordeal that involved Mal'Shik's conception and birth, ending in my father's death. The violation of my parent's bonding violently injured my mother. She almost did not survive it. And yet, she and my sister never held my brother responsible as I did."

Srre stopped again, and McCoy mentally kicked himself down the hall and out to Sarek's house for ever starting the subject. Sorel, S'ad, and Tu'ong calmly let the med student talk. Had they heard the story before? Or was this just a Vulcan way of letting Srre heal by refusing to bury the problem?

"Mal'Shik was almost dead in Phase III when we spoke and managed to bring some semblance of peace between us. I went to Sorel that night and asked to be reinstated into the medical program."

_Carrying on for your brother_, McCoy thought, and remembered the half-Romulan had actually been the more talented of the two. That was saying something because Srre was good.

As Sorel was saying now. "Srre has done well in advancing. His studies in the mental disciplines on Gol have helped him."

"And patients do not have the hesitation with me that they did with my brother," Srre said. A shadow passed over his expression. "But then, I am not a half-Romulan trying to touch them with the possibility of having to enter their minds."

That shadow now passed over the others as they remembered Mal'Shik, a talented associate stifled in his career and now dead from a disease they couldn't cure.

"I will check on the transfusions' progress," Srre announced. No one reminded him that it was too early to learn anything.

"I will go with you," Sorel said as he and S'ad stood up.

No one made it out the door as T'Par came in. She was one of the healers taking some of Sorel's and Corrigan's patients so they could work on the hybrids. McCoy met her years ago at the same time he met Daniel.

"T'Paevana asked me to bring this to your attention," T'Par said. "Saavik has left the hospital grounds. She was signed out by Healer Rrelthiz and will return tonight."

Not stress, not tension, but apprehension perhaps wafted through the group summed up by S'ad. "Saavik is in Phase II, is she not?"

He really didn't need to ask. Everyone on the medical team knew each patient's general status.

_And now everyone's chanting to themselves, "It's not really pon farr, it's not really pon farr."_ McCoy's thoughts might poke fun at it, but he knew it was a real concern. Saavik was in the equivalent of plak tow, coupled with the predatory drive Tu'ong had discovered in the Hellguard surivors.

"How deep into the phase is she?" Sorel asked.

"Early," McCoy answered. "She just started showing signs yesterday." _Where the hell did she go? And how fast is that phony plak tow going to progress?_

Corrigan held his hands out. "Rrelthiz is with her. Hold on a second! I know she's not experienced with the condition, but everyone here has approved her to work with all phases of the disease. Besides, we have good people on staff. If Saavik was at risk to herself or anyone else, she'd never have made it out the door."

McCoy told himself he should be relieved. "And she wouldn't want to be outside the hospital anyway if she was bad off." _Right? Nothing could make her budge._

Everyone exchanged glances, but unless they wanted to send people charging after Saavik for most likely no reason, looking at each other was about all they would do.

"We were checking the transfusions," Sorel said. As if it was an order, everyone started going back to his or her business.

The comm signaled sounded, and Daniel answered as he got up to get his shower. "Corrigan."

McCoy hurried over to the desk when he heard Jim's voice. "Daniel, is Bones there? They told me this was the place to track him down."

"You got me, Jim. What is it?"

"Can you come to Sarek and Amanda's? I need to discuss something with you."

"Can't it wait, Jim? We're going to check a few things here."

"I need your input on something, Bones. It's about Spock."

McCoy felt every single muscle in his back stiffen as icy fear crawled up his spine vertebrae by vertebrae. _The disease only affects Romulan hybrids_, he reminded himself. But the disease had claimed victims supposedly free of its grip before.

Behind him, Corrigan must have heard the same words, because his breathing caught like a rattle in his throat. McCoy turned and saw the other man staring at his family photos...

...at his Vulcan hybrid daughters.

McCoy pushed down the lump blocking his throat. "What is it?"

Maybe Kirk saw something in his face or maybe he just realized the impression he gave. "Not medical, but it's important."

"We're about to check the transfusion progress, and --" He almost said _Saavik's gone and I'm worried_ but he had already resigned himself to wait. "I'm pretty gross, Jim. Let me stop first--"

The tones of a starship captain sounded. "Get home, Bones."

He nodded, not arguing over the word 'home'. He knew what it meant. "I'm on my way."


	8. Chapter 8

The interview room was small with barely enough space for the table and the four chairs framing it. One central light from above spilled a spotlight down, barely covering the surface of the table and not extending any further.

Security cameras were tucked somewhere, into the corners most likely. One large rectangular window was across from the lone figure at the table, but no one moved around outside in the corridor to see in. On the empty chair next to the figure was an oddly damp looking cloak.

Something moved restlessly around in the darkness just off to the left of the seated woman, and every so often, it sidled closer so a small bit of light picked up streaks of electric blue on shining, black, reptilian skin. Valeris paid little attention to the indistinct form as she looked through the window in the door. She focused on Saavik who was oddly out of uniform, barely hearing the guard tell her that her visitor authorized the removal of her shackles while in the room.

She was surprised only because she didn't know the other woman was on the planet. If she had known, she could have calculated how long before this 'visit' took place. She did the calculation anyway, using her landing on Vulcan as the first point, and came up with another surprise.

Saavik was late.

The manacles snapped off her wrists and ankles under their key, and she refused to acknowledge she felt anything so emotional as relief. The door opened, the panel blocking her view temporarily, and when it moved out of the way, she found Saavik stared at her, and Valeris felt the heavy weight of her prisoner uniform. It was like the manacles banged closed around her wrists again.

Her chin came up and she looked back defiantly. No, that was improper. She must be poised, assured, Vulcan.

The way Saavik looked.

So why did she automatically stiffen as the hybrid glanced down her length and then back up to stare again unflinchingly into her eyes? Everyone in Starfleet and on Earth said _Traitor_ when they stared at her. The short time she was in Vulcan hands, her people said _Failure_.

Saavik said... nothing. Nothing. In the years they had known each other, Valeris never saw nothing in Saavik's expression. A chilling trickle of warning seeped through her. The guard left and the door locked.

She made the first move, impassively raising an eyebrow. "Inevitable."

"Perhaps."

She had once studied Saavik's movements as a template, then set them aside when her achievements put her above the woman. She saw the other's stillness, the _waiting_. "You took longer to arrive than I estimated."

"I was not aware you knew I was on Vulcan."

"I know much that you are not aware of."

"You should use it for better purposes."

The verbal battle screeched to a halt. Valeris had thought she could keep the conversation away from her... crimes for longer than this. The immediate setback displeased her. "I achieved things you did not for all the talk of your talents."

Saavik didn't rise to the bait. She asked patiently, "Such as?"

"I am the only Vulcan ever to graduate first in her Academy class."

Saavik didn't rise to the insult either. She mocked. "You should have used that for better purposes as well. That is, if you truly earned the position."

Valeris drew herself up, gratified she had stayed standing while Saavik sat. It was some advantage. "Think what you like. We both know your lower class ranking is not the only place where you were... inferior."

"Valeris, my years in my career have moved me beyond the point where a class standing means anything. As for the other flaws you refer to, again your superiority has gained you nothing." Saavik stood, the chair legs making a harsh, loud scraping on the hard cement floor. "Despite what you apparently think, I am not here to discuss your actions as one of Admiral Cartwright's conspirators."

"How did you find out?" The question was out before Valeris fully thought it, startling her as it did Saavik. "Oh, but of course. Spock." The name was said stringently and she waited for the older woman's triumph.

But Saavik half turned away. "No. Perhaps it will give you a sense of accomplishment, Valeris. Your actions are the talk of the Fleet. I heard the general announcement while on my ship."

"You are still not speaking to Spock?" _Interesting._ Those actions had gone undiscovered.

"We have not spoken in years as you are already aware." And then as if she had heard Valeris' thoughts, Saavik looked hard over her shoulder. "Do not misunderstand me. I know about your part in my cancelled transfers to the _Enterprise_ and what you accomplished with those letters to Spock and I."

Valeris had only one way to battle back: feign ignorance. "Do you accuse me of something?"

"No, I inform you of the fact that all your crimes have been discovered. However, as I said a moment ago, for the purposes of this discussion, only one matter is important."

_A reprieve?_ What could be so important that Saavik put aside her grievances? "And that is?"

Something metallic flashed in Saavik's left hand, still hidden, and Valeris stiffened. A padd dropped on the table with a bang and then a rasp as it was pushed across in front of her. She picked it up and read.

"The signer of this document agrees to waive away all present and future claims--"

Of course, Spock: Saavik was here for him... and Valeris suddenly realized she did hold sway over the other. Over quite a few, really.

Except, it was not so clean as that.

She read through the document, calmly absorbing it fully even as her mind recoiled from the memory: the long fingers against the psi-points on her temple and jaw... the strength in them and that strength transmitted into the meld, forcing her mind open, _tearing_ it open when she sought to block him. All his gentleness gone, buried by his hurt and yes, anger over her betrayal -- realizing he was her key to accomplishing all she had, that he had been used -- and then his pain nothing in comparison to the screams she gave first mentally and then physically as waves of agony tore through her disciplines like they didn't exist.

She put the padd down calmly and pushed it back towards Saavik. "No."

"Sign it."

"No."

"Valeris--"

"I will pay for my crimes, and he will pay for his. Is that not logical?"

Saavik sat back down -- almost dropped really -- and Valeris noticed the other's composure slip. Some of the haunting memory drifted away as she regained sway over the conversation. "Do you have any argument to my question?"

Saavik looked up. "On whether it is logical? I could point out this problem never would have happened if you had acted on logic and not been part of the conspiracy."

Valeris drew herself up rigidly and her voice was ice. "Meaning I deserved it?"

Saavik glanced up and her eyes were... _sympathetic?_ "No. I can think of very few -- perhaps no one -- who deserves a forced meld. I merely refer to the truth that this was a chain of events beginning with your traitorous decision."

"If I used your logic, I could say all this began with you. You after all introduced me to Spock."

"Do not remind me."

"Can you not see? What I did, I did for the benefit of the Federation."

"Rua Penthe."

The unexpected comment threw her off, and she couldn't think of anything intelligent to say quickly enough.

"Do you consider implicating Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy wrongly of murder, of their incarceration and possible deaths on Rua Penthe a benefit to the Federation? Or assassinating a leader of peace because he was a Klingon and then later murdering your fellow conspirators -- were these all benefits?"

Valeris frowned. "They were unfortunate byproducts, a necessary price to pay for ensuring our safety from the Klingons." She did not sound so cool now; she made a plea and it puzzled her. Why try yet again when no one listened?

But Saavik might. She understood an enemy's cruelty. Valeris' own initiation to it began in her childhood during her parents' unorthodox scientific expedition near Klingon space. Her mother named her after a Klingon heroine and deliberately didn't teach her much of Vulcan ways. For all this... open-mindedness, her mother was raped and killed by Klingons, and then they turned on her...

Her father went insane with his family's destruction, yet he continued to mind meld with her as a child, twisting logic to exonerate his coming here despite the Vulcan government and scientific body's objections. He ended up killing himself, and she was left alone at their research post until the supply ship came, sitting by herself with her parents' bodies... and all her lessons from the Klingons.

The most horrible story she knew -- until she met the half-Romulan. "You would have done the same in my place."

But she had wrongly assessed Saavik's earlier slip in composure. She was as strongly self-possessed as ever as she rose halfway from her seat. "Never."

"You most likely will or do you sincerely believe Spock will not make peace with the Romulans his next ambition?"

The other's hardness hitched, turned to momentary doubt, and struggled to come back. "I will not do what you did."

"Indeed. I was not aware you had... embraced the Empire in your heritage."

Saavik's hands lay on the table and her fingers pressed cruelly against the surface, the tips and skin under the nails paling with blood loss. Valeris flicked up an eyebrow. So easy for everyone to point accusations and to cry their piety over her deeds, so much more difficult when she pointed out the cases where their sanctimony failed.

"There is a difference," Saavik said. "I may not believe in his cause, but I believe in Spock. I would never betray him."

That's what Spock had said to her, that she should have kept her faith in him over her conviction against the Klingons. "Wouldn't you? I wonder if your belief will be enough for you or him. Or will your faith waiver when held against seeing Romulans freely enter the Federation under the guise of allies? Or will Spock demand more than a show of faith in him such as a full adoption of his cause? Interesting. We will see. Be sure of it, Saavik. He will make the Romulans his next goal."

Saavik's eyes darted along the table's surface. Valeris raised an eyebrow and dug her dominance in a little deeper. "I will keep a place for you in my cell."

The older woman sank back into her chair wearily. The sign of tiredness was shocking and Valeris faltered.

"Friend Saavik, you waste your words with this one."

She had forgotten the Carreon who now made her way out of the dark corner on Valeris' right to come around the table and stand in front of her. The black skin and blue markings gleamed in the light as the nostrils widened as if assessing her.

The resulting snort obviously found her wanting. "She has no honor, Saavik. I thought as much."

Valeris stared down haughtily, not bothered by the judgement. "Rrelthiz, correct? Saavik spoke of you."

The tip of the Carreon's tail shook like a rattlesnake's off to the side where Valeris could see it. "She spoke of you too. You were friends, she said."

By turning her head, she could see the other woman in her chair. "We are."

Some note made Saavik look up.

"_Are_?" Rrelthiz spit. "You call yourself a friend? She gave you much! Lady Amanda said Saavik welcomed you when your own people didn't. From the first day, she helped you."

That first day when Valeris stood in line at the government offices in ShanaiKahr, applying for citizenship. She saw Saavik in her Starfleet uniform, serene and Vulcan, and knew it was everything she wanted to be.

And then, even better: the Vulcan was not Vulcan after all. Saavik was robbed of citizenship by her krenath birth on Hellguard as Valeris' was stolen by her parents' insistence to turn their backs on everything Vulcan. Yet, Saavik escaped her past, becoming what she wanted; she reached Vulcan's acceptance based on merit. Valeris had found someone who understood.

And who gave her Spock.

Valeris nodded, looking back at Saavik. "She did help me. A great deal, in fact."

"So the Lady Amanda said--"

Amanda never approved of her. It wasn't just her preference for Saavik above the others she took in for instruction, for help, or for simple introductions into Vulcan's ways. Even at the end of their initial meeting when Saavik introduced them, and despite Spock's acceptance and growing interest, Amanda originally gave politeness and then silent disapproval to Valeris, even putting an end to Ambassador Sarek's opening goodwill. She never understood why. Or why it bothered her.

"-- And why your false friendship is even worse."

"It was never false." Valeris spoke to Saavik. "Friendship, however, means accepting one of you has more strengths than the other and rejoicing in the fact. It means accepting their attempts to improve you, even though the attempts bring discomfort."

Saavik asked, "And you believe I am the one who failed in our friendship because I did not accept these things?"

"We both chose the Vulcan path later in our lives instead of being raised in it. However, we reached the time where I... surpassed your abilities in the disciplines and your growth in being Vulcan. I later exceeded your accomplishments in the Academy, and most likely in your career had the situation been different. You should rejoice in my victories as my friend. T'Pau surmounts Sarek and yet no discord exists between them."

"I never was bothered by your accomplishments, Valeris. It was you who had the need to be superior and to remind me of it."

"You once said--" No, wait. That was Spock ...and her Vulcan tutors ...and her instructors at the Academy. If one were human and Spock's protegee, the comparison was with Pavel Chekov, but in the last ten years, if one were Vulcan, the comparison was with Saavik. Saavik who was actually lesser was counted as greater.

And so Valeris began distinguishing her superior status -- except around Spock who frowned when hearing it.

"You see, Friend Saavik? No defense, she makes none!"

The Carreon was growing annoying. "I may be wrong in attributing certain attitudes to her. I am not wrong in what I did."

The tail beat the air angrily. "You are very wrong! You took friendship and violated it!"

"It only appears that way to you. You cannot understand." She turned back to Saavik. "You will."

"You are so sure?"

"I did it for Spock."

Rrelthiz made some noise that Valeris took as scoffing.

"I know I benefited from it, but Saavik, it was for him."

"Stop."

"Saavik, listen to me--"

The raised hand silenced her, but it took a moment for the words to come. "If you want to tell me something, tell me how--"

Valeris waited, but Saavik was apparently taking her own advice and had stopped. "How?"

The words were haltingly, the strength gone from them. "My letter... how did you know?"

"I know you." Even now Valeris saw her mind was the greater, otherwise how did Saavik think she never reasoned this out? "And I can ascertain what aging at a certain pace means to Vulcan biology. On Genesis, Spock aged, but it could not have been as rapidly as you reported it was later -- after Dr. Marcus' death and before Captain Kirk's arrival. If he was constantly aging rapidly with no stable periods, he'd have gone through his entire lifespan and died. And you would have noted the growth in your reports on your tricorder. So, like Genesis, he surged, stopped for some time, and then surged again. In the end, the planet's destruction sped faster and so did Spock's aging. Correct?"

Saavik said nothing, nor did she look at her.

"So he aged to adulthood, stopping at certain points. One of them must have resulted in--" She paused, remembering the Carreon. She spoke in Vulcan. "-- in _pon farr_. What were your choices then? Let him die, of course. You would reject that even without knowing _Enterprise_ was on its way. Let him fight Marcus with the prospect of combat stopping the Fires. That results most likely in Spock killing Dr. Marcus or the slim possibility Marcus kills Spock. You would reject both instances. Meditation? An impossibility with Spock's mind in its state. Again, you would not risk Spock's life when you... had a means at your disposal of sure success."

She waited with no more result than before. "I overheard Dr. McCoy speculate on this once with Captain Kirk when he was unaware I was in the room. They said your response to Spock looking at you after the _fal tor pan_ was..." She raised an eyebrow. "...curious. You will not answer me, will you? All right. After I realized this chain of events on Genesis, I recognized an important point. Spock doesn't know. You never told him. You saved his life in a way the Elders give respect for, and yet, you never told him. I did not know why, however I knew whatever the reason, you were vulnerable in this action. So I used it for your letter."

She took a breath. "If you would let me explain--"

"Friend Saavik, what does she say? Lies to justify herself? You know better than to listen. She diverts you from her guilt."

"What reason are you here?" Valeris asked Rrelthiz tightly.

"As a friend, a true one, and as a healer."

"I have no need for a healer."

"Not _you_."

Valeris saw Saavik in a new light: the weariness, the breaks in composure. "Are you ill?" No answer and she whirled back on the Carreon. "What is it? Why bring you to Vulcan?"

Rrelthiz gazed with worry at the bowed dark head on the other side of the table. "It is the Romulan hybrids disease."

Valeris almost repeated it in shock. "Saavik -- they said you would not contract it."

"They were wrong."

_She'll die_. So hard to believe that Saavik, that figure in uniform in ShanaiKahr, the one who gave Valeris the strength to keep her Klingon based name, who helped fight the battles and took her to Spock to sponsor – Saavik was dying?

When those eyes looked back this time, they said _Traitor_. Or was it that Valeris finally saw it for herself? If only she'd be allowed to explain!

Rrelthiz darted in between them making Valeris aware she had unconsciously reached across the table. "You fake your concern! She does not need it!"

Valeris pushed the Carreon out of her way. "Saavik, I know you think I did all this for myself, but it was for him." That face stayed turned away, the line of the jaw tight, stubborn. Why wouldn't she listen? "You always said you would sacrifice for Spock. Then accept that what I did to you both was out of friendship and my concern for him." She paused. "You bring him shame."

The other woman turned away again and victory was back within grasp.

"It is unfortunate, but true. You do him... harm, Saavik, and neither of you saw it. The ones who did see it -- other than myself -- allowed it to continue."

She caught Rrelthiz glancing at Saavik and when no argument came from that quarter, the Carreon hissed, "You lie!"

"No, I do not. Do you remember the ball in ShiKahr, Saavik, when the Federation president came to Vulcan?" Valeris remembered it vividly. She had discovered Spock would be there and used the blanket invitation to her family to gain entrance.

Oh, the first sight of _him_. Where she once saw Saavik as the embodiment of what she should be, she found she was wrong. Spock achieved more, was more! Where she thought Saavik a kindred soul, it was Spock who came from unfortunate parentage and an unusual Vulcan upbringing. More than that, his intellect which Saavik spoke of with such a wealth of appreciation was something that had to be experienced to be cherished. She discovered it even watching him from a distance, learning the thrill of that dark gaze and deep voice.

Saavik was originally to be offworld during the ball, so when they announced her name, Valeris was surprised. She was already outdoing the half-Romulan and was eager for the other's acknowledgment. Only when Saavik entered, no one saw Valeris. Spock had stopped still in the crowd as McCoy whispered to Kirk, and Amanda murmured to one of her aides and Commander Uhura. Even T'Pau complimented Saavik as T'Lar nodded in recognition!

And Spock crossed through the crowd to Saavik's side and they spent quite some time talking between themselves. Valeris watched them and realized with alarm, _The boundaries of his being her teacher are gone_. When she worked her way to them, she found them in deep discussion on a project of Saavik's, and Spock was giving all the strength of his intellect to her.

"You introduced me to Spock for the first time." Not that he paid much attention… then. "I saw how he placed importance on your opinion."

"Which gained you his mentorship."

A valid argument, but why did Saavik make it so quietly? "True, and again, I appreciate your efforts on my behalf."

Rrelthiz interrupted. "You do not show it."

The Carreon was getting very annoying! "She abused her position," Valeris said coldly.

"Another lie."

_If she says that once more... _

Saavik finally showed a reaction. "How?"

"That night at the ball, some of the most noted scholars in the Science Academy sought to discuss matters of importance with him, and you dominated their time instead."

"Spock asked my opinion on their questions, and encouraged me to ask my own. They did not suggest I not give them."

"T'Pau and T'Lar sought him out to confer on the importance of his _fal tor pan_. You interceded."

"I was asked about his mental state on Genesis. ...Was that when you first noticed my reaction?"

She was not going into digressions when she was building her case. "You danced with him, a human waltz requiring you touch him when you were not his to do so."

"The dance was a gesture towards Amanda. She taught it to us both. I noticed no one objecting."

_Amanda taught you the same dance… how contrived._ "Then you were ignorant. Others saw the objections and Spock is a member of an honored House. He suffers when such disapproval occurs before the Vulcan Council."

Saavik's hands were shaking… _shaking_! "What else?"

"Captain Kirk asked Spock who should transfer to the _Enterprise_ and you pressed him on your wanting the position."

"The captain and I had already discussed the transfer. You missed where I informed Spock of it." But her voice was small.

The sense of victory grew in Valeris and it did much to overcome the pains endured ever since her arrest. "Possibly, but there is more. It culminated in the day Spock told the captain that you brought out the hybrid in him."

A small glow and a lift returned in Saavik's bearing. "He said that?"

"Yes."

Rrelthiz interrupted again. "And you thought that wrong. Why?"

"Because Spock spent the majority of his life striving to be the best Vulcan has to offer. It takes years of difficult study and practice to obtain the level he did. That work was being undone already by his human shipmates who strove to emphasize he seek their path instead. However, as it was put before him as a choice – be Vulcan or be human – he was not in danger." Valeris stared back at Saavik. "Until you. You undermine all he has accomplished because he believes he no longer needs to make a choice, but be both. You hurt him by defeating his accomplishments in the face of those who swore he could not reach them. Where once he strove to excel, he now considers a lesser standard as acceptable. You made him less than he was, Saavik. It had to stop."

She saw the blows hit their target, and couldn't stop the sense of success. _It is wrong to heal my own wounds by causing others_, but she could not stop.

Saavik wilted and Rrelthiz swung on Valeris. "And what do you do for him? You--"

"I brought him back to what he once held in high esteem. In mentoring me, he strove again for what it meant to be fully Vulcan. In my accomplishments, he saw what he used to achieve himself."

"And you turned his help into betrayal as you did with Saavik."

The Carreon's unflagging defense was… amusing now. Even she was seeing the truth and fought out of stubbornness. "As I stated before, what one does for the sake of friendship is sometimes… painful, but must be accepted for the good it does."

"Is that what Captain Spock did when you sent your fake letter? Accept his pain for the _good_ it did?"

How he looked when he received that letter… it made her resolve stumble until he responded to her presence and offer to help. She stared coldly at the small, no longer so amusing healer, but she had no affect on Rrelthiz.

"What conversation did you overhear and exploit that time? Or did you break another system and steal its information?"

"If you must know," Valeris brushed off the attack, "I did none of those things. In fact, I was helping him. He suffered a blow to his temple during a training exercise while guest lecturing at the Academy. He was unconscious and the injury was over a telepathic point. Medical help was still some distance away and I was the only Vulcan on site. I melded with him to see if his mind was undamaged."

"And I am to think he just gave you this information?"

"No!" Really, this exasperating sub-life form was passing beyond mere annoyance. "A thought was on the surface that led me to the other thoughts. I probed deeper although why this is important to you--"

"Because you hurt and say you must! You take thoughts and honorable actions and hurt with them! You steal into the computers and use them as your weapons. All to separate Captain Spock from Saavik because you wanted it." The last was a snarl.

"For their own good, yes!"

"Thank you."

That came from Saavik. Not beaten anymore, not withdrawn inside herself: her head was up, the light from overhead shadowing her eyes, but not able to stop the fire and the relentless determination in them. She pushed back from the table and stood, her hands once more gripping the edge as if trying to escape the table's grip.

Outmaneuvered! Everything from the moment Valeris refused to sign the waiver was a battle of mental agility to draw her to this point, and she lost the battle.

Rrelthiz moved back behind Saavik's left shoulder, once more blending into the dark.

Alarms sounded in Valeris' mind. Too late. "Saavik, what phase of the disease are you in?"

As if it did not matter, "The second."

The artificial pon farr. "How… deep into the phase are you?"

"The second day."

The plak tow or rather the mockery of it. She was in danger. She flailed under the sudden change in the situation. "Why did you bring Rrelthiz with you?"

"She is Carreon."

"I don't understand that statement."

The fire turned up a notch. "So much for a superior intellect."

_Her hands shaking before... anger, not anxiety_. With the last bit of pride and strength she had, Valeris said coldly, "You are trying to intimidate me. It will not work."

Saavik shook her head, doing it so slightly, her eyes never broke their hold. "I am not here to intimidate you, Valeris." With the barest touch from her fingertips only, she pushed the forgotten padd back in between them. "I am here to get you to sign that release."

"No." She tried to stare Saavik down. Tried and failed.


	9. Chapter 9

Saavik watched the other, saw the attempt at defiance and knew where it came from. As long as she needed Valeris' signature, the woman thought she held the upper hand. "Know that one way or another, I will not leave here with this matter unresolved. You do better to sign the document now."

"I will not."

Saavik shoved at the table and it flew a few feet. Valeris jumped back out of its way, her back bumping up against the long window. It was her turn to look wide eyed, and Saavik struggled for control. Better to harness the driving blaze than let it consume her.

"Valeris, see the trouble you're in."

That chin came up again. "I promise you I do."

"No, you don't." Saavik kept herself in check, but it began to grow harder to stay that way. "I speak only of what you professed to tonight. If you go forward with these charges against Spock, _I_ will bring charges against _you_ for much the same accusation that you make against him. You confessed to using a meld for stealing information from his mind -- you confessed to computer tampering in two different counts. With the crimes you already have against you, what little chance you have of escaping _tal'shaya_ will be erased."

The edge of the spotlight cut a swath across Valeris middle, hiding her face and upper body but revealing how fiercely her hands pressed against the wall. "Tal'shaya?"

"You are charged with treason, multiple counts of murder, accessory to murder, conspiring against innocents--"

"I know the charges against me."

"Then you know what possible penalties you face. You may, _may_ receive life with rehabilitation instead of a death sentence, but the odds are low. Murder is the highest crime on Vulcan along with abuse of a meld _which I will bring against you if you go against Spock_!"

She watched the other's dark eyes flick back and forth, and then come up heatedly. "You manipulated me well. How very Romulan of you."

How _dare_ she! "Is this more of your friendship, Valeris? Another example of your hurting me to help me? Like everything else you've done, I fail to see what I gain by your insults!" The heat pounding in Saavik's veins, escaping out of her fingers clutching the table, out of her eyes, out into the air as she exhaled through flared nostrils. It was consuming, a fever demanding a mate's answering passion and without that hunger satisfied, she was left with being riled by a… _rival_ until blood was claimed. "You want to list my flaws, by all means do so. But remember, Valeris, I am not the one under arrest. I am not the traitor. You are."

"I told you, I did what I believed necessary for the safety of the Federation. We swear to do so when we become officers."

"I hope that brings you comfort when you face a death sentence."

Valeris pushed away from the wall, ignoring the table pressing against her and refusing to push it back. "You will not intimidate me."

But she was. She was glancing out the window behind her and through the door: no guards. Saavik had excused them.

She came around the table, shoving it again, making room. Valeris stood ground, and then broke. They circled, Valeris backpedaling until she couldn't move any further with the Carreon behind her.

"Saavik… why did you bring Rrelthiz here?"

"I knew you would not admit everything to me."

Valeris was an arm's length away and the same distance from Rrelthiz. She was trying to watch both of them. "No, earlier you said it was because she was Carreon. What did that mean?"

"One way or another, Spock will be safe."

"Spock will be safe?" Valeris suddenly resurged with renewed vehemence like she had never backed away. "_Spock will be safe!_ With what he's done, you stand there as if he was the innocent victim, blind as you've always been where he is concerned! All I hear is how I deserve the repercussions for what I've done, and _he_ is to come away blameless for raping me? No, Saavik!" She found the padd and stabbed the other woman's abdomen with it. "He was wrong and I will _never_ say otherwise."

Saavik's chest rose and fell as though she was the one crying out, her throat raspy. "I never said he wasn't to blame for what he did. I never said he was right to do it. I only know enough damage has been done, and you are _far_ from innocent yourself. What do you gain with more destruction?"

"If I am destroyed, what do I care if I take him with me?"

She stiffened. "Don't, Valeris."

The chin came up scornfully, but the question was asked silently.

Saavik's hands half-curled into fists. "Don't make me choose between you. You will not win."

The single lamp caught the trauma festering under the younger woman's skin. "You keep saying one way or another you will have what you want. What does that mean?"

Saavik glanced behind Valeris to Rrelthiz who as an outsider gained more perspective. The lidless, black eyes reflected the light fixture as they narrowed before she shook her head.

It took will power called from somewhere Saavik didn't know she had to seize herself under control. She wrenched away, putting her back to Valeris. The room was too small, but at least removing the sight of her gave a mental distance. "It means I know you too well to believe you casually dismiss the possibility of being executed. Understand I offer the opportunity of saving you from it."

"You made a threat to not make you choose between Spock and I... that clouds whatever benevolent offer you'd have me believe."

Saavik didn't trust herself to turn around and see that disdain. "Valeris!" The need to strike out washd over her along with the wearying effort of holding that need back. All made worse by this stale, stark, utilitarian cage with its harsh lighting and watching eyes that sooner or later would check the security monitors.

The tendrils of her control strained. Her teeth were already clenched. "Grow up, Valeris."

"Do not--!"

"Without the charges I could bring against you," Saavik ground out, "you stand a stronger chance of receiving a living sentence, even rehabilitation."

In the quiet, she pictured Valeris eyeing her back – in arrogance? In alarm or supplication?

"It is not enough."

_Arrogance, of course_. Perhaps not. Valeris had her own demons. Saavik remembered long nights of the other struggling to speak of her nightmares. "What is not enough?"

"Having only a possibility of not being executed. I need you to... ensure I am kept alive."

_I need you_. So, some alarm was mixed with the arrogance, and she was expected to once more provide a rescue. "How am I to accomplish this?"

"As you said, you made contacts here."

"I do not know if they are the type you need."

"You misunderstand. I want you to use your influence over Sarek and Amanda. They _are_ the type of contacts I need."

Saavik now understood how emotional species managed to laugh in their anger. The release would be welcome. "Only you, Valeris -- You once said the singular good thing about Amanda was she learned to mask her inadequacy by accepting Vulcan's ways. And now you want her help? You expect me to abuse the privilege of their association?"

"I don't want to die."

This yaw between Valeris' self-centered focus to her sincere appeals was draining, and Saavik didn't know how much more she had to give. She was prepared for the arrogance, but not the pleas; they stole her anger and brought the guilt that she was supposed to do something. Surely even a Vulcan was allowed to turn aside cries for help from someone who betrayed her?

Amanda never warned her of the penalties for taking on strays. "If I agree to petition your sentencing tribunal, do you agree to sign that waiver?"

"I... want to see him."

Spock? "I do not have the power to make that happen." She risked a glance. "Or have you forgotten what you accomplished?"

Valeris' eyebrows drew together. She was honestly puzzled. "I do not understand why you continue not to speak with him if you know the letters came from me."

_And she stands there saying that so blithely to my face_. She never understood if Valeris' twisted logic came from her father or _because _of her father and his melds fanatically justifying his failures. Either way, it was there, looking at the wreckage she caused and reacting only with curiosity.

_To know Spock once more.._. And possibly lose him a third time? Never could she bear that. Better to stay outside of his life than to feel this agony again.

Valeris spoke, completely oblivious to the other's torment. "I never thought you would really reject him on the basis of – wait, if you are not talking, do you even know what his letter says?"

Thin lipped, Saavik answered. "No."

"And you do not ask me to tell you. Interesting." Dark hair fell into Valeris' eyes as she shook her head. "No, I do not understand that either."

"Can you understand this about your letter?" Saavik quivered with pent up rage and heartbreak, too many tendrils in her control snapping from the tension. "I _died_ that day! As much as I did the day when he died on _Enterprise_!" She turned away, grabbing the back of a chair to dig her fingers into it as a choked sob shook her.

The voice came from behind her. "I apologize."

Her fingers further dug into the metal.

"But I am better for him."

With a strangled scream and bared teeth, Saavik flung the chair, not seeing or caring that it almost struck the window but instead crashed and bent under the force of hitting the wall. She dug her nails in her palms. She didn't dare turn around, not to look at Valeris, not to look at Rrelthiz in case she might say she changed her mind. If Rrelthiz made such a signal, the last meager threads of Saavik's hold over herself would break.

She was aware again of the cameras. So far her violent moves went uncaught. How much longer -- before they looked at the cameras or came back to the door?

Haughty, Valeris said, "You are losing your control."

The final kindling to flame the blaze. At last Saavik turned, swinging on the smaller woman, driving her back until she could go no further and her personal space was violated. Saavik didn't care anymore. _She didn't care!_ The fires burned too hot, fed by Valeris' antagonism, and that was going to end.

"That is not all I lost." She grabbed Valeris' prisoner tunic roughly, hoping her touch scorched. Her words were barbed with all the pain of the last years, and her teeth clenched together. "Damn you, you stole _my life_. What I built, what I achieved to _earn_ that position on the _Enterprise_, you robbed. You took Spock, _killing_ everything I had with him so it would be yours instead! And never once with all your patriotic excuses did you explain how your destroying me helped the Federation!"

She shoved into Valeris' face. "So I must be one of your byproducts. You kept me close until I trusted you. You learned my vulnerabilities, and then struck me there. How very Romulan of _you_." She shook hard once. "And now you stand here demanding _anything_ from me?!"

Astoundingly, Valeris gazed back defiantly, speaking her assumption of which one of them had the right to Saavik's life. "You want reasons for what I did to you? You forget I was forged this way. If I had the chances that others--"

"You dare blame your childhood? Your parents wanted you, didn't they, Valeris? One of them didn't rape the other, did they, Valeris? You spent the first ten years of your life with a family that wanted to give you everything. They didn't abandon you to kill and starve and die, _did they, Valeris_?"

The tunic was balled in her fists, and she yanked violently on it, pulling Valeris off her feet on to her toes so she fell, Saavik catching the weight on her forearms. "You claim all is forgiven because you cannot overcome your past? Shall we see what childhood forged in me?"

Saavik bore all her rage out through her blazing stare, channeling the throbbing injury from the other woman's treachery as she pictured how she at last was going to strike, give in to the flame, and pay her betrayer back.

She stopped when she saw the look rise in Valeris' eyes. The knowledge that the blow was coming...

Aghast, she let go abruptly and backed away. How many victims on Hellguard had that same look? How many of them seared into her memory until she got her knife and could kill from a distance?

Rrelthiz was behind Valeris, watching, ready to interfere. She said nothing, and she didn't judge even knowing as she did the worst things Saavik was capable of. But she reminded her long time friend of the line they agreed upon, the line deciding where lay honor and what was ugly revenge.

The heat of plak tow screamed once for release then ebbed, yielding to her too worn willpower, but it remained simmering under the surface. Worse, it might bring the madness pulsing into her veins, and then she'd be lost. _I will not allow Hellguard to dominate me!_

All three of them panted from the moment for different reasons, but Saavik didn't dare wait any longer. She needed to get what she wanted before Phase II consumed her totally. "You were right. I am losing control. Rapidly. And I am running out of time."

Valeris was confused, feeling her way through the sudden change. Too much had happened now for them to talk as anything more than opponents. "Then agree to my terms."

Go to Amanda and Sarek? Beg for their help? Saavik refused to violate their relationship. They were two of the very few people she had left after Valeris' manipulations, before she rebuilt her life on the _Aerfen_. She refused to give Valeris access to them as she had once done with Spock. "I will do what I can," she said shortly.

"I will not sign until you promise to remove the threat of tal'shaya."

She thought of the contacts she had made here on Vulcan. Would they be enough? Starfleet and the Federation had cleared Spock on the grounds of national security. Vulcan might, _might_, be convinced to think the same. Good people sometimes did terrible things. No one knew that better than Saavik.

But she had no guarantees that Vulcans would agree not find against Spock, so she needed to bring up Valeris' violating a meld. Once she did that, what did she have to save Valeris? Should she even bother?

If only she could think clearly! She silently vowed to find a way. Somehow, she must. "Agreed."

And almost howled in rage when Valeris still hesitated.

The command came from her throat low and deadly. "_Enough_." She snatched the padd, shoved it into Valeris' hand, and clasped her own over it so the other woman couldn't throw it down. "_Sign_. You do not want to know the other choice."

The dark eyes looked up, and she thought she felt a tremble in the fingers under hers.

Valeris spoke, the ghost of their friendship rising from the remnants. "I thought… you might understand."

Some part of Saavik surfaced as well through the building Fire, and she managed to relax her grip, at least minutely. She even managed to speak in a semblance of the person that took Valeris in that day in ShanaiKahr. "I do understand your motive. You feared for the Federation's safety with a people who brought you nothing but pain. But your actions were wrong, Valeris. _You_ must understand that. You hurt and killed many innocents by what you did, so I cannot give you my acceptance. The difference between us means… I will never share that cell with you, Valeris. You will be alone there, even if Spock seeks an alliance with the Romulans."

The younger woman abruptly looked away. Everything that terrified Valeris came to be through her own fault. Her place on the _Enterprise_, gone. Her closest friendships, used. Her only company now, her fellow conspirators. And for both Saavik and her, no Spock because of her actions.

"Valeris… If he was ever important to you, let him go. Let some good come out of all this. And save yourself by doing it."

Their gazes locked, the moment dragged, until Valeris drew strength, drew bearing, and pulled Saavik's hand away so she held the padd alone.

* * *

_Stasis!_ The figure stared at the screens. _They goaded – insulted — ruined everything!_ What if they put all the hybrids in stasis? How to remove the new barrier! _Think! _The half-breeds had to die, they were behind schedule! Oh the ache to think twenty-one could be dead instead of being robbed by the healers of these ten! _Think, think!_

And the katras! How did the importance of that ritual escape notice for so long? Was the goal really reached if the katras went on after death?

At least some things moved along like they should: Saavik in Phase II – _With no mate! Yes, good!_ How risky it had been to create the second stage when the half-breeds might conceive their own children.

Relief flooded the figure on the thought that the disease _was_ working. And now it was honed nicely.

Such as Phase II not having the fertility of pon farr. Only a few hybrid females sought pregnancy during it -- Pekhi for example -- and the core element of the disease caused them to miscarry. For those hybrid males bonded to non-hybrid females… well, it had been easy enough to cause those miscarriages as well, until the hybrids feared the disease was killing their children and stopped seeking conceptions.

The last three hybrids... no worry that they would seek children. And the question of katras didn't occur with them.

Ten in stasis, twelve others awake, four of them over a year before death.

_Think, think!_


	10. Chapter 10

Note: I removed the acknowledgments from the beginning; I will post them in the end when I finish the story. I think it'll be an easier way to start reading this way.

* * *

Sarek left the home office he shared with his wife, leaving behind the arguing Kirk, McCoy, and his son. Their voices pelted his ears except for Spock's low tones, but as the argument encompassed the forced meld on Valeris, even his son's quiet voice seized Sarek's body until he had no air. He took the first opportunity to excuse himself, wanting to check on Amanda, and felt Spock's gaze follow him out of the room.

What did his son expect? No, if Sarek gave into his internal struggle with blistering, heated words, he'd never be clear of them. The shadow from his and Spock's previous eighteen years of silence made him take great effort to keep his reactions reined in when talking at all with his son, even as his disapproval (_his utter disbelief_) swam in the undercurrents of the room.

Another good reason to excuse himself.

He found his wife sitting in the rocking chair. How surprising. She hadn't sat there since the days she held a very young Spock in her lap. The chair was actually too big for her so she always preferred to sit elsewhere. She looked off into an unseen distance, the fingertips of one hand laying on her lips.

"Amanda?"

No answer. She appeared so dwarfed by the chair, and he saw written on her features -- old age. Older than his, not chronologically, but in their periods of life. If Spock was lost over this crime, the blow on Amanda would equal their son's death years ago. He faced losing both wife and child.

She faced him, the fingertips sliding to her chin as she continued to lean her elbow on the chair arm. "Sarek, what can we do?"

Quiet words; his were the same. "I do not know." He brought another chair to sit across from her. "In the other room, they argue how to save Kirk."

"Jim?"

"From a charge of being an accomplice."

Her other hand gripped his knee as she turned away to stare at nothing once more.

"Amanda, tell me again what Saavik said to you."

But she didn't repeat it. She asked instead, "Do you think she stands a chance?"

"They were friends at one time. Valeris used to listen to what Saavik said. Perhaps--"

A silent moment passed. "Sarek, what can we offer Valeris?"

"If Saavik fails?"

She sighed. "I noticed you never quoted the odds of her making Valeris develop a conscience. I don't blame you. No one can do that."

He spoke softly. "Then, my wife, how do you suggest we do it when someone who knows her better cannot? Especially as our doing so deprives Valeris her right to justice?"

She pressed white knuckles against her mouth, perhaps holding back a sob. He held her other hand in his large one, but found he was wrong. Bitterness, not sadness, spilled out in her next statement.

"All the time I spent pointing out Valeris' faults, not hiding what I thought of her, it's haunting me now because it means that I can't go to her and beg her for anything. Maybe if I had kept my opinion to myself, given her my approval when she wanted it--" Her eyes flashed blue lightening. "But look at how what I said came true. She hurts Spock and Spock--" She couldn't say again what Spock did.

"My wife, what would you have us do?"

"She must need _something_ that we can give her. With all our influence--"

"Amanda... do you understand what you are suggesting? I have never abused my position! I will not begin now!"

"Not even for your son?"

"Do you believe a guilty man should go free because his family bribed his victim?"

"Yes! ...no. Sarek..." She swallowed. "If it was someone else telling me about their son, I'd be appalled that they flaunted their power to get him free. But Spock is _our_ son, and I know it makes no sense, but I can't help but see the difference."

Abuse his position to save his son who admitted his guilt to a heinous crime? Amanda sounded like she believed Kirk – that as wrong as Spock's actions were, some validation played a part. "It does not make him innocent."

"I know!"

"And yet, you still suggest doing this?"

She looked up at him with deadened eyes. "I don't know what else to do. If you can think of anything, please tell me. I'm so lost, Sarek."

If he didn't use his position to save his son, he added Amanda to the loss. He saw the pressure already taking a toll on her. So did he choose to do what was right or what would save his family? That was if he _could_ do anything to influence a Vulcan tribunal or to make Valeris listen to him.

The sound of a footfall was the only indication Spock had entered the room. "Mother?"

Amanda didn't turn to the sound of that entreaty. Sarek stood, keeping the delicate hand in his, and saw the desolation in Spock's expression.

"Mother, I want to give you an explanation, but I cannot, not when I do not have one for myself. I immediately regretted what I did to her, but regrets do not take the action away. I never mentioned it before now because I believed it partly justified."

Amanda spoke with her face still averted. "You mean, after Jim justified it for you."

Kirk walked in just then, recoiling, but he knew to stay out of it.

"Mother, I believed I acted out of protection for what was right."

"Isn't that what Valeris said?"

But Spock only nodded. "And it is what you plan now."

She made a noise between a gasp and a cry.

"Do you not? Wish to use your and Father's position to prevent my paying the penalty for what I did?"

Sarek started to speak and stopped. Spock noted it.

"You nor I cannot erase my guilt, Mother, or undo the damage to Valeris."

Amanda covered her face with her hand, and Sarek shared a troubled look with Spock. She suddenly spoke. "What do you want me to say?"

But Spock floundered with his answer and Sarek shared the ache with him. It telegraphed through the bond to Amanda. She suddenly dropped the hand covering her eyes and smiled slightly at Spock, weary and sad.

"I don't hate you. You're still my son. Is that what you needed to hear?"

His back straightened, tension draining visibly out of him. He rose an eyebrow calmly. "Yes, Mother. That is more than sufficient."

A faded version of her old sparkle flickered for a second, then disappeared. But she could look at him. "Spock..."

"I know, Mother."

McCoy was hanging back with Kirk, his head going from Spock to his parents and back. He and Kirk exchanged a glance before he spoke. "What do we do now?"

Amanda dropped Sarek's hand and held it out to Spock. He crossed the room, taking it and returning her squeeze; a rare public gesture from him, but he clearly didn't care about appearance in front of those present. He then stood and addressed Kirk.

"We must agree on this.."

Kirk's hands clenched with his frustration even as Amanda pressed her knuckles again to her mouth. "Listen, I was reluctant to give the order, I knew what it meant, but I gave it."

"Your argument has discrepancies. For example, you did not actually make it an order."

Sarek's head snapped up at this new information.

Kirk disagreed vehemently. "You _knew_ it was! Everyone knew it was!"

"That is not what we must discuss."

"Spock, I don't like what happened anymore than you. But if we had let them destroy Khitomer, the Federation and the Klingons would have fallen with it!"

"That is the decision made. Khitomer was saved and the possibility of peace with it. Now, I must take the responsibility for what I did. Right or wrong, it was done."

Sarek closed his eyes and kept silent. Nothing he wanted to say helped Spock or Amanda. He laid a hand on her shoulder. When her eyes stared up into his, he felt the weight of what she wanted, and then saw doubt creep into her gaze. A heavy burden: justice _must _be done, even when the guilty one was… his child, his only remaining child.

"Spock--" Kirk began.

"It is time, Captain, to give equal right to Vulcan and Valeris in judging my action as Starfleet was given. It may be that they will come to the same conclusion. They may not. It is irrelavent."

"What the hell are you trying to do? Get yourself killed?"

Sarek saw Amanda choke at the words, and he almost snapped at the former captain to either be silent or get out of the house. Only Spock shaking his head tiredly stopped the command from crossing his lips.

"No," his son said. "I will face my consequences, and I will not make this worse." Kirk started to protest, and stopped dead when Spock called him by name. "Jim! I am no better than the conspirators if I take any other action than this."

An uneasy silence stretched over everyone, a blanket of white noise that snuffed their strength. McCoy broke into it. "Then tell us how we _can_ help."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "A logical reply, Doctor. You surprise me."

"Goddammit, Spock, don't try to make me laugh now! I can't take it."

Spock suddenly darted a glance in his father's direction, the lightness he exhibited with McCoy laying only on the surface, already dispelled. Sarek couldn't turn away as he tried to gauge what the glance meant. Entreaty? Spock never asked him for help before. Did he now when his father had no idea how to give it? Or did he want -- understanding? Sarek did much in his life that he wasn't proud of, both personally and professionally, but this...

... it was unthinkable. Where did that come from in his gentle son?

And all anyone told him was how he did not understand because he had not been there for that moment. Did not know how Valeris...

Sarek's shoulders drew straight. _How wrong I have been to not see this before. _"We illogically waste time with this discussion. We have gained no new facts, and only wait for someone else's actions. It advances us no further under these circumstances."

He picked up the faint sound of a groundcar pulling up in haste to the estate.

Kirk's ears couldn't detect it. "I'm all for the direct approach, but what are you planning to do?"

The door in the main entryway whisked open and close, and Sarek thought he heard slight clicks and scratches on the tile. He started for the foyer; a guest must always be greeted, and he had sent all his aides away. Although, whoever it was, they had come through the door on their own. That fact spoke of familiarity.

"I plan to first discover what exactly is the situation. We are reacting to what we expect will happen, not to what we know. An unsuitable use of our time."

Kirk stepped rapidly after him. "I'm coming with you. Bones!" he called over his shoulder.

"I'm a doctor, not a lawyer, Jim. What the hell am I going to do?"

"You can--"

Rrelthiz burst through the archway into the room, the speed of her flight causing her unique cape to swirl around her legs, the sounds of her taloned feet now muffled because of the carpet. She stopped short before running into Sarek. "Excuse me, Ambassador. I was hurrying."

"Rrelthiz!" McCoy yelled in great relief for some reason Sarek didn't know. "Is Saavik with you? Where is she? Is she okay?"

Amanda was on her feet, holding on to Spock's arm. His brow was knitted in confusion, but her frown revealed the deep anxiety she barely kept hidden all night.

The Carreon healer answered each question instead of giving one overall answer. "Yes, she is. In the car outside. Yes, as you might expect for her stage, Dr. McCoy, but I am returning her to the hospital. We already would be there, but she insisted we must stop here so first I can give this..." Her head swiveled, finding Spock. "…to you."

Sarek very much wanted to see that padd Rrelthiz held out, but she held true to Saavik's instructions and rushed to his son. Amanda leaned closer so she could read with him, and when Sarek was one step away, her features melted in relief and she pressed her forehead against Spock's shoulder. He knew they were saved.

Spock's expression switched from confusion to a blow from what he read, and Sarek now no longer wanted but _needed_ to see the padd for himself.

'The signer of this document agrees to waive away--' and at the bottom was Valeris' signature, witnessed by Saavik's.

_She did it_, Sarek thought. One of the children he had argued against ever being Vulcan, the woman who once lived in his home but he knew mostly through his wife… and now, she saved Spock's life _again, _he thought, _and through it, most likely Amanda's and mine as well_. The boulder on his chest that had made it hard to breathe rolled away.

Spock said, hushed, "She did this?"

Rrelthiz seemed to hear some guilt attached to the statement. "Captain Spock, accept it as the reparation owed to you from this Valeris. _Your_ amends to her," she lectured sternly, earning Sarek's respect, "is in the next file. You need to sign it."

Spock asked, "My amends?" even as he read on. Sarek couldn't see, neither could McCoy now at Spock's other side, so he only saw his son's eyebrows vault under his bangs and Amanda scowl darkly.

He got his opportunity to see for himself when Spock looked up to Rrelthiz. "There's a third file."

"Friend Saavik's promises. That is already signed. No one is concerned with that one except her, she said. You only see it as all three agreements are being filed together. But your agreement… indeed you _must_ sign it, Captain Spock. Saavik went through too much to gain this. Do not--"

"I fully intend to sign, Doctor." But his voice was far away.

Sarek read the second contract: the same as Valeris' until it listed the charges Spock was agreeing not to make against her. '…abuse of a meld -- including theft of information – occurring on…'

He stared up at Spock who nodded vaguely. "That must be how she knew what to put in my letter. She might also have learned of my talks with the Klingons."

Valeris abused a meld years ago, and other charges were listed including the computer espionage. By signing the waivers, she and Spock agreed their wrongs would cancel each other and they would never bring charges against one another. Quickly flipping to Saavik's file, Sarek saw she also promised not to bring charges for the injustices done to her as well as agreeing to speak on Valeris' behalf at her trial.

No bribes, no abuse of position necessary. Saavik had sensed more was behind Valeris' personal betrayal and had used that to trade Spock's freedom.

His son's voice suddenly gained strength. "Dr. Rrelthiz, did you say Saavik was outside?"

"In the car, waiting for me, yes. If you will sign that--"

But Spock was leaving, his sudden departure getting him a few steps before Sarek managed to get in his path and Amanda's grip on his arm held him back.

McCoy had rushed with them, and Sarek asked in a lowered voice, "Rrelthiz said a stage?" The doctor nodded, and held up two fingers.

Kirk was the only one not to come over to see the padd, and he didn't hear what was going on now. He was pulling the Carreon aside, trying to get her attention. "Rrelthiz, why did Saavik take you with her? Why not McCoy if she needed a doctor?"

Sarek tuned out that conversation almost completely, speaking in the same volume as before. "Spock, you cannot go out there to Saavik."

Amanda looked like she'd rather say exactly the opposite, but she knew better. "You heard Leonard. She's in Phase II."

"I am already aware of this, Mother. However, Saavik must not be deeply in the phase if she was allowed outside the hospital."

McCoy darted a glance at Rrelthiz next to Kirk, and lowered his voice. "Believe me, we weren't thrilled when she found out she had left. But Rrlethiz signed her out and left a note. I saw it just before I came here. She said she almost didn't let Saavik out herself. In fact, _Saavik_ explained to her she would not normally do this, but she had to in this case. Guess what she quoted? 'The cause is sufficient.'"

_Surak_, Sarek identified.

"Now that I know where they went, I got to agree with her. Should've guessed that's where she had headed. And they knew the limitations for how long Saavik could be out. It's why Rrelthiz is anxious about returning her to the hospital. She _is_ going deep in the phase."

Amanda added, "And she's not chosen a consort. Any male will only aggravate the condition. That includes you." Spock's head swung sharply to stare at her.

Sarek spoke again. "Respect Saavik's decision, my son."

Some of Spock's intensity left him, but he still nodded tightly, thwarted. "Of course. I was not arguing against it." He took back the padd, preparing to sign it.

The other conversation now filtered into Sarek's hearing again. Rrelthiz was in the middle of explaining. "…it was an excellent plan. Let this Valeris think Saavik weak and she is in control. Then I push on a different problem so Valeris does not see she is confessing. Friend Saavik then shows she is _not_ weak, and we get the agreement."

"But why you?" Kirk insisted. "No offense, Rrelthiz, I just don't understand. Why not McCoy or me or Spock? You said it needed to be you."

Her tail swung powerfully as she responded strongly, "No offense to you, Captain, but you name humans and Vulcans. I am Carreon. I understood the situation as you can not."

Kirk was angry, and it showed in the way he snapped. "Meaning reparations? And revenge?"

"Indeed."

He bolted for the door, his face tight with rage. Sarek opened his mouth to speak when Rrelthiz called out first. "Captain, where are you going?"

He had made enough distance that he was already out of sight. His voice came back. "I'll take Saavik back to the hospital! I have something to ask her!"

Sarek rushed after him, hearing McCoy's yell, "Jim, get back here!" The slim Rrelthiz slipped past, scrambling for purchase on the tiles for a second, and then finding her footing and flinging herself down the hall. Spock and McCoy were with Sarek, but they reached outside only in time to see the groundcar's lights already up the street.

Sarek immediately spun back inside his home. "We must contact the car and tell him to come back. At once."

He heard McCoy whisper to Spock, "It'll take a diplomat to come up with a polite way to tell Jim what he just got himself into. What are you glaring at me for?"


	11. Chapter 11

Kirk paid no heed to Bones yelling after him. McCoy didn't see what was going on here; he did.

He opened the door to the groundcar and rapidly slipped in. The door blocked the outside light throwing Saavik's face in shadow, but he heard her sudden inhale.

"We have to talk," he barked, and slammed the car into forward. He caught the comm unit out of the corner of his eye, and punched the power off. He wasn't Rrelthiz. He didn't need to be in constant contact with the hospital.

Saavik pressed herself against her door and the dim spill from the interior lighting showed her hand gripping her seat.

_She knows the tone_, and he kept it up, using his best commander's voice. She was a well trained, experienced officer. The best way for him to get at her was making her heed a superior.

Even a retired one.

"Saavik, don't get me wrong. You rescued Spock, and I'm just as glad as anybody else that you did it."

She looked out the window, her form a lighter darkness against the night outside.

"But the end doesn't justify the means, not for Valeris, and not for you."

She spoke, her voice stiff. "Your point, Captain?"

She probably knew where this was going and didn't like it. It's why she acted like this. Too bad. "The reason why you took Rrelthiz along. What were you thinking!"

She didn't answer. She even refused to look his way, and kept the physical distance between them as if it put his argument at bay.

He clenched his teeth hard together, and spit his words out between them. "You're Starfleet, and you can quote the rule book better than the people who wrote it. You know you're in the wrong, and that's before we even talk about you being a Vulcan."

She shifted in the seat, and he was tired of facing a shadow who wouldn't even look at him. The road was empty this time of night, so he let go of the controls with one hand.

"Saavik--!" He reached out, not to touch her, but to lay it on the seat above her shoulder.

"Computer!" she shouted. "Override! Stop the car!"

Its sensors read the street and safely pulled the vehicle to the shoulder. Saavik raced out before the door opened all the way. Startled, Kirk sat frozen before flinging himself out on his side.

She walked up the length of the car and then back to her door. "Captain, permission to speak freely?"

That was a sad reminder that she really didn't need to ask him anymore. "Granted."

"Make your accusation, whatever it is."

"You know what it is." The light was a bit better out here, but she was still hard to see, and he almost shivered in the night air. "Rrelthiz is a Carreon. She believes in revenge where it's justified by her standards, and that includes killing your enemy. You knew that! And you took her along because she's the only one who'd snap Valeris' neck if you didn't get you what you wanted!"

"No!" Her face turned towards him, but strands of her hair blew across it with the breeze. "I would never ask Rrelthiz to kill for me. I know the consequences. I would not make her pay them."

He put his hands on the car in surprise, and then suddenly lunged over the hood. Saavik stepped back, adding more space between them. "You planned to do it! What do you care about a murder charge when you're--" He almost didn't say it, but her once more refusing to look at him spurred his temper. "—dying from the disease if it's not cured."

"Not quite." She moved down further so they were speaking from opposite corners over the hood instead of across from each other. "I admit some of your accusation is true, but you incorrectly blame Rrelthiz. And I was not so quick to murder as you make me out to be." She met the wind fully, letting it play along her, and her voice grew calmer. "The Carreon have an honor code. It may be harsh to you, but that is why the Federation insists on one culture not forcing its behaviors on another with which it disagrees. Her honor has strict rules on when revenge by death can be demanded, or, as in this case, if it is even necessary. I took Rrelthiz with me so I may have that judgement."

"And if she had said yes, you'd have done it!"

"_If_ I saw no other way, yes! If I couldn't save them both and had to choose, yes!"

"Save them both? What does that mean?"

She exhaled with deliberate slowness, staring down at the ground, and he thought he heard her breath tremble. He put it down to the cool air streaming in from the desert.

"Because of her actions with Cartwright, Valeris put herself into a possible death sentence. Because of what he did over her actions, Spock faced the same penalty. The obvious solution was to allow the two of them to excuse each other, but Spock has no power to acquit Valeris' crimes of treason and murder."

"Are you telling me he should do it if he had the power?"

She suddenly shoved against the car and the obvious sign of her frustration over the situation was the equivalent of Kirk screaming into the night. He couldn't believe his eyes. He remembered the last time he had seen her, at the restaurant, her homeworld's behavior cracking through her Vulcan controls.

She took another deep breath, spinning around, and he saw her roll her shoulders. They were on the outskirts of ShiKahr and far from Sarek's estate. The desert lay out before them on one side and she stared out into it, ignoring his question. "I needed other charges against Valeris to make my solution viable. I suspected more was behind what she did to Spock and I personally. She almost proved me wrong… However in the end, I was correct, and that gave me the ability to put the mutual waivers in place."

His surprise melted away when he remembered why they were here. "And if she hadn't signed it--"

"I would have chosen to save Spock rather than lose them both."

He pounded the roof with a fist. "Is that how you justify it?"

She looked sharply over her shoulder. "What would you have done?"

"I wouldn't have killed Valeris to get Spock clear of this. I never would have even thought of it!"

"Are you so certain?" Even for a human, the sarcasm was heavy. It nipped at Kirk's mind and he'd have realized what was going on if she hadn't charged ahead. "During your mission on Eminiar VII, you gave General Order 24 to Mr. Scott while you were held captive." She paused, gripping the car. "That order meant you wanted him to destroy the entire planet if you were not released! You didn't tell him to fire on the Center where you were held or to give even warning shots to unoccupied areas. You insisted on the entire planet! An order to commit _genocide_ because you were taken prisoner!"

"Hold on! You weren't there, you don't know why I did that!"

"I've seen the logs, Captain. You know your first five-year mission is released for viewing. _You_ explained your actions in those logs--"

"And you misread them! I gave that order for a psychological effect."

"Exactly."

He shook his head, his eyes never leaving her, but the light from T'Kuht high overhead shadowed her own. "I'm not buying the change in story, Saavik. You didn't threaten Valeris just for the affect of it."

"You are wrong. It _was_ my first purpose. I never directly threatened her, but… she knew." Her voice dropped off. "I saw the effect."

"But you would have gone through with it."

"And if you were never released on Eminiar?"

"I never doubted I'd get out."

"That is the difference between us, Captain. I do doubt."

He snapped, "So my arrogance is a way to explain you putting murder as an option in your plan?"

"I remind you, sir, I did not go through with it. Even Rrelthiz did not think it necessary."

"I don't care! It's no reason to excuse what you were thinking."

"However, _you_ can excuse giving an order to rape Valeris?"

Cold shock ran through him and he fumbled with his response. "I..."

"You didn't see it as rape because you're not telepathic? That is not an excuse, Captain! You have served with Spock too long not to know how violating the mind's privacy is viewed here. And yet, you gave the order! You stood and watched him do it, insisting on more information until she screamed!" She now lunged against the car. "One more thing, as you know Spock so well. Would he have forced that meld if you hadn't pushed him in that direction? Did _no one_ try to stop it? Any of the command crew who is put forth by Starfleet as the embodiment of our ranks? When did _you_ get the right to justify the means by the end!"

He drew himself up, staggered. Spock might have thought of using a meld to get that information from Valeris, but would he have suggested it out loud? Or gone through with it? How much of the blame lay at Kirk's own feet?

And how could Bones, having shared Spock's _katra_ and all the knowledge of mental privacy that entailed, how could Bones, a doctor, not say anything in protest?

Or Uhura as a woman not cringe at any form of rape and call out against it?

Or…

Why hadn't he ever asked himself this before? It's exactly what Spock had just been trying to get him to understand.

He bit on the inside of his lower lip, looking around him without seeing anything as he asked himself the hard questions. Rubbing his jaw, he finally looked up. "Saavik--"

She shoved against the ground car, then stiff-armed it, rocking it on its repulsors. "_Damn you, leave me alone!_"

His hands dropped from the shaking vehicle and his eyes turned into circles of disbelief.

She strangled out, keeping her head down, "I need to get back to the hospital. Now!"

He took in the fingers biting into the seams of the car, the way she still heaved against the heavy vehicle, struggling to control a more violent reaction, and her shaking body – not just from the night's chill.

_Oh sh— Oh shõ _

The last piece felt into place: why she trusted Rrelthiz more than her own judgement not to harm Valeris; the _emotion_ spilling out when she talked to him; why Bones had yelled after him, not wanting him to get into the car's close confines with her.

How did he forget? She was in Phase II.

The thought of why she leapt away whenever he got too close, why she always kept a distance, almost made him flush with embarrassment. In the next second, he needed to control a different, emotional reaction. He was a healthy male and Saavik was certainly beautiful. The fact that she responded to him like this – he'd have to be dead not to feel something in return.

But he clamped it down. She didn't want _him_. Any man would cause the same reaction from her. The rejection as she demanded to be left alone was no more personal than her response.

Except if he got in the groundcar to take her to the hospital or if they stood alone together on this empty road much longer, it was going to get _very_ personal.

Lights from a coming vehicle blinded him when he turned in their direction. He spun back to warn Saavik to get out of view, knowing how much the public seeing her would bother her right now, only to find she had already done so.

The approaching car pulled over behind them, and Rrelthiz bounded out of it, calling out to Saavik. Amanda exited at a more gracious pace, barely pausing at Kirk to smile. "You'll be riding in that car for the rest of the evening," and she indicated the direction from which she came.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered automatically. He felt like one of his teachers caught him in a prank that just blew up in his face. He backpedaled a few steps, watching as Amanda went over to where Saavik stayed bowed by their vehicle. With the ease of long experience, the gentle hands pried loose the ones tightly clamped on the door.

Saavik looked up, blinking in the bright light. "Amanda?"

"Yes. It's all right." She embraced both of Saavik's hands by holding them in her own, the mock pon farr too developed for her touch to do any harm. "This gives me the chance to thank you for once more saving my son's life."

"What – what I did..."

Kirk held his breath as Amanda cupped Saavik's cheek and laid her thumb kindly on the trembling mouth, silencing it. Saavik rested into the blessing of the cool touch.

"We'll talk later. Rrelthiz and I need to get you back to the hospital. Unless... it's not too late to choose someone. You're not so far along that--"

"There is no one."

"Are you so sure?"

Saavik's eyes suddenly squeezed shut as her body shook. "Yes."

Rrelthiz spoke for the first time. With a doctor's authority, she said, "Friend Saavik, indeed I do not understand fully what you are discussing, but if Lady Amanda knows someone who will help you with the disease--"

With bared teeth, Saavik replied harshly, "That is not what she means!"

Neon-blue eyes stared in shock as a tail stilled for the same reason.

Amanda argued, "It doesn't have to be a bondmate, just someone who understands you'll want no ties--"

"No one!"

"Saavik, even Vulcans have people _available_ for this!"

"I said, no!"

"All right! Be stubborn and pick the most difficult way! As if I'm testing your strength of character!"

Something in the words made Saavik's head come up, distressed. "I meant no insult. I only… I _will not be forced _into anything except that which I absolutely must endure!"

Amanda shook her head in amusement. "I don't envy you the days ahead." She patted the cheek. "But I understand."

Silently beseeching Rrelthiz got a soft, happy laugh. "Oh Friend Saavik, with all we have been through, you must see you can't be rid of me with a little bout of temper!"

Saavik sagged with relief and let herself be bundled back into the car. As they drove off, Kirk realized he had been rooted to the spot, mesmerized by the scene. He wondered if Saavik even remembered his conversation with her. He did, and he didn't know what to think.

Behind him, he heard sounds coming from the vehicle, and he realized he had company. The door opened, the sounds growing louder, but Spock stepped quietly out, and Kirk had no idea how to interpret the look on the Vulcan's face.

McCoy scrambled out from the back, and now the earlier sounds were clearly his laughter. "Jim!" He walked over, one hand on his stomach as if it hurt. "I wish I had seen your face when you realized what you stepped in!" He doubled over on Kirk's shoulder, laughing so hard, he could barely speak. "Damn, that had to be good!"

"Shut up, Bones." He squirmed as Spock's eyes continued to bore into him, and McCoy's hysterics hooted in his ear. First his own embarrassment, then Amanda's dig, and now these two. He felt like an idiot. "She's a patient of yours, you know."

That had the great side effect of turning Spock's hard stare onto McCoy. "He is correct, Doctor. You show little concern for Saavik and her situation."

"What kind of unfeeling monster do you two think I am? I'm not laughing at her condition or anything else about her at all. Just _you_, Jim. And as _your_ doctor, I hate to break it to you, but I don't think you're up to this marathon anyway. Even if Saavik was taking volunteers." He began chuckling again.

"Will you _be quiet_! Act your age." Kirk pushed the other man off and walked to the car, heading for the driver's side. He looked back, and saw tears of laughter on McCoy's cheeks and Spock watching him. A padd was in the Vulcan's hand and he gladly jumped on that to change the topic. "What do you have?"

Spock didn't answer right away, then finally crossed back. "More information from Rrelthiz. She said it was important." He handed it over the hood. "A simulator test Saavik ran earlier today."

"Simulator?" Kirk browsed over the display. "This is at the VSE training grounds. That's near the Science Academy, correct?"

Spock nodded. "But the information does not say what the simulation is for."

"Because Saavik knew and thought she could take care of it." _And then the business with Valeris interfered_. He wasn't ready to discuss that quite yet. "Well, there's no time like the present." He began to slide into the car. Anything to make everyone forget what just happened.

McCoy knocked on the windshield and spoke through it. "What? You mean go there now?"

"You have other plans?"

The doctor thought about it and shrugged. "What the hell." He climbed into the backseat and a second later Spock was in as well.

Kirk started out, hoping he remembered the way correctly. He usually rode in the back himself with Spock or Sarek driving.

Chuckles came from the backseat, and McCoy pushed up next to him. "Jim, you gotta tell me. Did your face look like this--" He bulged his eyes and dropped his jaw wide open. "—or should I add a lecherous touch to it?" He burst out laughing again. "And can you imagine what we thought we'd find when we chased after you? Especially when we saw your car pulled over?" His head dropped against the seat, his laughing barely stopping for air.

"Shut _up_, Bones!"

The simulator was dark, but almost immediately someone activated its lighting, splashing brightness around the unfamiliar bridge configuration. _Unfamiliar to me_, Kirk corrected himself. Spock buzzed around the stations, totally at home.

None of the Vulcans at the Science and Exploration training facilities appeared at all surprised when he and the two others showed up this late at night. The middle-aged male taking the request only asked curiously, "Purpose of exercise?" When Spock replied, "Research", the VSE officer nodded in understanding and escorted them here.

"Now what?" McCoy asked, cranky with fatigue.

Kirk looked to Spock who raised an eyebrow. "We wait."

"For what?" the doctor insisted.

A deep, low, almost booming noise sounded and every station activated.

Kirk shrugged. "Looks like we won't be waiting long. Spock, what can you tell us?"

The Vulcan checked the sensors, but never got a chance to answer as the ship shuddered hard, throwing them off their feet. Instinctively and with too many battles under his belt, Kirk grabbed for a solid object and held on. Klaxons sounded and one station sparked, faltered, and returned to full power.

"Spock!"

"The ship is under attack. We were struck with no warning while our shields were down."

"Put them up now!" McCoy yelled.

"Impossible. Our enemy targeted them first. They are destroyed."

The ship shuddered again, worse this time. Kirk held on and shouted. "Where the hell's the helm! Evasive maneuvers!"

The deck rotated under his feet and surged with speed. He lost his hold and snatched for a nearby railing. The ship rocked under another blow and he missed, flailing as he tried again. He stumbled and was flung at the railing, slamming into it.

Spock spoke calmly. "The simulation anticipated you, Captain. We are on an escape course."

"Who's firing at us!"

"On screen, Captain."

McCoy lost his footing and fell rather than walked up to Kirk. "Oh, crap. Should've known."

Kirk didn't get a good look because the main viewscreen flared with another close strike. He flung a hand up to cover his eyes and suddenly had to grab McCoy. Too late, he realized he had let go with both hands. He and Bones went flying, hitting the deck hard. His vision swam with dark spots for a second, as ribs already badly bruised from the railing were hurt again. He reached for a nearby chair, thankfully bolted to the deck. It took three tries before he could grab it and pull himself into it as the ship was struck again and again. He searched rapidly for safety restraints on the chair, and realized the stations were like his first _Enterprise_: nothing to keep him in this seat but grit and sheer luck.

Stations shutdown, and he was stuck on a sinking ship.

A soaring figure drew him back to the viewscreen. An old style Romulan Warbird swept by with powerful grace, flashing the bird of prey on its belly in triumph.

"Engines are down," Spock reported, eyes dark and solemn. "They know exactly where to strike."

Kirk pounded his chair arm. "What _do_ we have?"

"Life support, maneuvering thrusters--"

"Oh, like they'll do us any good," McCoy snarled.

"Bones, quiet! Spock, can we--"

A tremor shook everything, and they all grabbed on, but the deck stopped rolling abruptly. He _felt_ the ship strain and then still.

He spun in his seat in front of some dead station. "Spock?"

"A tractor beam, Captain."

"They got us," McCoy whispered.

The simulation died.

Kirk's head swung around the bridge as everything shutdown except the minimal lighting. "Wait, that's it?"

"Apparently so, Captain."

"But what was the point? Why did Saavik make a simulation that gave us no chance?" The odd thought struck him that if she was getting revenge for the Kobayashi Maru test, she did a good job. But she had no reason to do such a thing.

"If she meant to make me lose my dinner," McCoy complained, "she succeeded. I'm so dizzy--" He stopped and exchanged a glance with Kirk, suddenly grasping what was going on.

Kirk stepped excitedly up to the same level. "Bones, Phase I!"

"Vertigo... dizziness."

Kirk remembered how hard it was to grab the railings and chair with the ship jolting under his feet, unable to get solid footing or a hold of anything, and how his vision swam, the battering around making things not be where he saw them. "Double vision, loss of hand and eye coordination..."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "Apparently we were mistaken. The hybrids do not live out stages in their lives through the disease. They live out the lives of their Vulcan parents."

McCoy snapped his fingers. "The Phase I symptoms mimic what it was like during the attacks on _Diversity_ and the other ships. Having the floor roll under your feet, trying to grab hold of things and missing them, having your head swim from the ship spiraling out of control. All of it causing minor to secondary injuries: concussions, broken bones, but nothing major because the prisoners had to be alive and in good health. Then Phase II, the forced pon farr followed by thirteen months for the pregnancies."

"Then Phase III, a slow death from starvation and dehydration," Kirk finished. He felt ill with anger. _What kind of sick bastards came up with this thing?_

McCoy's excitement abruptly waned. "You know, it's all well and good that we figured this out, but what does it really get us? Knowing what Phase I means doesn't get me closer to a cure after all."

Kirk walked over to Spock. "But on our side of things, it confirms whoever is behind this knows everything about Hellguard and what happened there. That limits the field."

The Vulcan nodded. "The Romulans, of course. No one knows the details regarding the Vulcan prisoners on Thieurrull more than their captors."

"And the hate groups are out," McCoy said. "They can't know enough to put this together."

"Unless," Kirk stared pointedly at Spock, "they had someone on the inside providing the information."

Spock frowned. "You suspect a Vulcan?"

"I don't have anybody specific in mind. Just that it's a small list of people who know about Hellguard in detail. If it's not the Romulans behind this, someone on that list created the disease."

"Now waitta minute, Jim," McCoy spoke up. "_Created_ the disease? You're saying someone on the medical team did this?"

Kirk heard the righteous anger on behalf of respected colleagues. "Think about it, Bones. Who knows better how to make a disease and keep you off track for a cure than someone on that team?"

"You don't know what you're talking about, Jim. I've seen how everyone is fighting to keep their patients alive! And nobody has sole access to the test results or anything else to keep a cure locked up! It's _not_ Sorel or one of the others."

Spock's eyebrows were drawn together in thought. "It is possible that the inside source merely provided the details from the Thieurrull reports. Afterwards, someone else in the responsible group created the disease. That would preclude it being someone on the medical team."

"There! You see, Jim?"

"However, it does not rule them out completely."

"Thanks a lot, Spock! I thought you were on my side."

"I am no more pleased at this idea than you, Doctor. No more than I am pleased it may be a Vulcan. However, I put that aside because I know this person or persons must be found immediately."

McCoy fumed. "Okay, I know that. But what about what I told you earlier? If this is a hate group, why aren't they attacking you, Spock? Or Sarek or anyone else on the rescue team?"

"A valid point, Doctor. I can think of only two answers. The first I already stated: this is not a prejudicial based organization, but the Romulans. Second, whoever is behind this believes they are revenging Vulcan lives. Given this, they most likely do not wish to kill any other Vulcans, even ones so misguided as to rescue the half-Romulans from Thieurrull."

McCoy blew out a lungful of air. "So now what?"

Kirk smacked a railing with his palm. "We've got to get someone inside the Empire to talk to us! And we've got to go through the list of people here who might be at least leaking information."

McCoy frowned, but only pulled his hospital communicator. "I'm going to tell Daniel and the others about Phase I. Hold on, they're sending an update." He read something coming across and suddenly raised an eyebrow.

"What is it, Bones?"

"Jdehn and the other two show the first symptoms of Phase II. They should be full blown in another day or so. Get this. Jdehn asked Arik to go through it with her. He agreed. And you'll _never_ guess who Mehkai chose! I'll give you a hint. It has to do with someone Jim just took a car ride with."

Spock scowled darkly. "You said Saavik was not accepting anyone."

"Exactly! Mehkai's choosing no one, just like she did." McCoy chuckled. "He'd better get that chip off his shoulder. These battles to outdo Saavik and the others are going to get him hurt."

The middle-aged Vulcan who previously escorted them in stepped into the simulator. "Is there anything else you require?"

Kirk looked at the other two and shook his head. "Just a lot of answers."


	12. Chapter 12

All of Saavik's remaining it raged under the building fury of Phase II. No attention could be spared for her surroundings, and Amanda and Rrelthiz's voices from the front seats blurred into guttural noises that had no meaning. The car's dark interior blended into the blackness whenever she squeezed shut her eyes in an effort to stay controlled. She felt neither the vibration of the car floor underneath her knees where she had fallen, nor the torn fabric of the seat where her nails tore into it, clinging as if it were the precipice hanging over insanity.

Light struck her painfully, and she blinked as she looked around. Agonizingly blessed cool air hit her skin as she exited the car at Rrelthiz's urgings, and then the coolness was replaced with warmth. More meaningless noises, more shapes of figures that she blocked out, not caring, until the sharp stinging smell of antiseptics caused her head to twist violently as if flinging the odor from her sensitive nose. Her mind swam out of the fog and put together that she had come from the car into the night air and then into the hospital.

Amanda was gone. First loss, then relief flooded her. She feared the violence building and never wanted it to hurt Amanda.

She concentrated and felt the rapid movement underneath her, plus the bite of cold metal in her hands. She lay on a gurney as they transported her to a different wing. Privacy awaited in that new room, solitude to fight the storm. No more people annoying her. No more jarring voices from them and the overhead pages. No more stinging odors burning her nostrils, no more lights stabbing from the ceiling.

She gripped the gurney harder, and forced more waiting on her ragged nerves. _Not much longer. Must hold on._

The movement stopped, and she looked around bewildered. She spared a sliver of concentration to understand what was happening. Rhelthiz spoke with other people off in a corner. Saavik vaguely recognized one of the female nurses as well as Tu'ong. Her head fell to the side, eyes closing, and then parting again. The uninhabited desk bore a sign stating the wing where she would stay. The computer screen displayed a weaving figure of dark colors that finally coalesced into a winged shape: a predator with worlds in its talons, the tips tainted with emerald blood.

She opened her mouth to curse the Romulans for creating the circumstances of her birth and now her death. For laughing behind the Neutral Zone where they couldn't be reached, their mouths twisting cruelly with the sound while their eyes glowed with admiration for their cunning. As she drew in a lungful of air so her profanities would reach the Empire, the screen image snapped into its real shape. The monitored levels for the patients tracked on the screen, the lines forming colorful hills and patterns. Greens, blacks, and golds struck together making her fevered mind form the enemy's symbol.

Gold.

The gold triggered something else. Some memory scurried out of her grasp, but it was gold.

A small light pulsed on another board. Its circular brilliance morphed with the memory.

Some tiny portion of her mind ran forward from its corner where it hid like a child, waiting for the storm to pass by. She suddenly knew. Thoughts connected and that tiny awareness moved her body like a parasite controlling a host. She slipped quietly off the gurney, and, with the same lack of noise, got to the computer. She used manual controls, not voice, keeping the talking figures away from her. She needed to contact someone, someone who would make the same thought connections she would, someone who knew about the gold. She thought of one person, the one she always first thought of, even in the past few years when she wasn't supposed to, but that thought threatened to bring the fires back. She choked on a sob, and hurriedly went through other names, finally picking one, and sending the note off through quickly accessed communication relays.

Something betrayed her because the figures found her. The awareness hid again and her last bit of consciousness drained the control she had left. Phase II struck fully.

She struggled violently as they sought to take her away from the computer. She didn't care about the computer. She cared that they made her move when she didn't want to move -- that they forced their decisions on her. She was _not_ going to take it!

She could tell by the texture of the skin and the gentle tips of talons that Rhelthiz held her one arm. On the other was the dry touch that only Vulcans had. The inner fire reacted in a surging wave to the rival strength, eager for a challenger to beat against, and the small voice that whispered this was a friend on one arm was drowned out. She screamed a dare at them all, fighting so more hands reached in. She clawed, bit, and kicked, swearing at each one of them. She fell into madness and vowed she'd take them with her.

Something hard hit her side and the air rushed out of her lungs. In the moment she needed to recover, strong fingers grabbed the junction of neck and shoulder in the correct spot and squeezed. One second, two seconds, longer until blackness edged her vision and strength sapped from her limbs. Nothingness didn't come fully, but she was a rag doll being moved again.

Flames licked inside, reawakening nerve endings when the figures left her in a room with quiet, soothing darkness. She fought to her feet, her cursings rising in volume as she kicked at the few furnishings. These looked more comfortable than the standard hospital furniture in her other room, but she didn't care about that either. No windows to the outside, only one light fixture in a place she couldn't see, and a firepot that even in madness she knew not to pick up.

She realized she was blessedly alone. No more prying, pulling figures. No more bright light or antiseptic smells or loud pages over hidden speakers. Only her and the quiet and the soft, dim light.

No mate to make the journey with her.

No challenger to fight against so she may answer her blood's heat in that way.

She lost her mind to fire. A tidal wave of her body's chemicals and a hormonal rush drowned her in a sea of stimulants. She lost to it with the fever long denied. Like a predator in her system, it sought an avenue of escape but found none. No mate, no challenger. It backlashed against her, building up into higher levels. If this was a real Time of Mating, the building heights would trigger her organs and systems shutting down until eventually death took her. But the creators of this disease didn't want her dead, not yet, not until Phase III. Phase II tortured her, like her Vulcan parent was tortured, sparing her only a Romulan entering the room to take advantage of her body and mind.

Her muscles began twitching with the rising, unreleased fever, and then cramped. Spasms gripped with painful claws along her back, her legs, and her neck up into her temples. The overflowing buildup ate at her mind and soul, releasing dark emotions. She screamed in a loud, suffering cry, and then screamed again, over and over in one continual sound. Something strained in her throat, and the scream stopped in sound, but her mouth still stretched to let it out as she crashed to her knees.

The mock pon farr began.

Hours later and hidden away, the dark figure hunched in front of a computer display. Saavik had sent a message to Earth. That message was encoded and remained a mystery, but the responses now bouncing back and forth between Vulcan and Earth were summarized in a report, decrypted for his source's eyes. Saavik apparently thought she knew how to discover the source of the disease -- or knew how to contact someone who did. That someone was never named, not in any of the messages, but the fact he, she, or they lived in the Romulan Empire was suggested in the responses.

_Who?_

And now someone was coming to Vulcan, someone who had the ability to get the disease's source.

If only his expertise included computers! Then he could break the encryption Saavik put around her message. If he could read that, he'd have his answers!

The walls seemed to draw closer like a gripping hand.

_Panic. I am panicking over hearsay. I must think._

How much time was left? _How close are they? How much do they know?_

The disease was perfection. The figure's mouth curved at one corner. He may not know computers, but the disease... That creation worked exactly as planned and defied every attempt to cure it.

But was it enough anymore? Saavik and the other three were over a year from dying. _And the ones in stasis!_ That point constant frustrated him.

And the risk... it took so long to get Saavik. So long to get near her, not being a member of Starfleet. She rarely came to Vulcan, especially after some incident between she and Spock. And when she did come, he lacked excuses to get in contact with her. That first time, following Spock's fal tor pan, had been interrupted. It took years to reach her again, and then only through his unknowing associate. Plus developing a time lapsed trigger so he was safe from anyone linking them together. The disease struck her some time after their meeting. And the meeting was covered up.

But attacking Jdehn and the other two so close to his location - wouldn't more attacks lead to detection?

_It has to be done._ At least prepare for the possibility, design ways to speed up the process. With Phase I now understood, the disease had made its point. No loss in attacking in other ways.

Under rapid fingers, files opened regarding the hybrids. With the security clearance provided by - _Another problem. How much longer before _he_ discovers how his assistance is being used?_ But having a link to a Vulcan on the medical team was too valuable, too _necessary_. And when his 'associate' figured it out…

The lips firmly compressed. _Never mind that now. Keep on with the goal._

Immediately, the files suggested a possibility. _I overlooked this detail. Yes, it fits very well._ And another file, previously inaccessible, contained another good idea.

_Now, how to implement them?_

The disease took years to build, to make sure it worked correctly. _Keep the same patience with these new attacks_. Although… Saavik was quarantined for Phase II, and soon, so would Mekhai, Jdehn, and Arik. It made for the perfect time to strike. They were within reach with no guarantee they'd stay on Vulcan in the thirteen months before Phase III.

It still gave him time to formalize a plan.

Once more he glanced at the computer display. That someone arranging to come to Vulcan – someone Saavik believed could burrow into the Romulan Empire and find the truth about the disease… The pressure began closing in again.

Daylight streamed in through the windows while heat rippled the air around the hospital. Outside on the grounds, the sight of walking figures wavered with the high temperature and colors bleached under the midday sun. The sight was the best Saavik had seen in days.

Feeling heat from outside her skin was good too, so she stayed in the Starfleet exercise top that let her soak in the soothing warmth. She'd slept little during the past ordeal and she knew she'd feel drained. What she didn't expect was her continued restlessness. She was used to her abundant reserve of energy, but that vigor seemed overflowing at the present, jumping under her skin as if it hadn't been expelled as it should have been. Mixed with her fatigue, it made her muscles feel high-strung as if she had been injected with an overlarge dose of stimulant.

But she _had_ only returned to her regular hospital room seventeen minutes ago. She planned to absorb the calming normalcy of standing in the sun for a minute more, and then use meditation to help her out of this feeling.

Someone signaled at the door, and Saavik told whoever it was to enter. As she expected, it was one of the medical staff, T'Paavana, but with a surprising message. "Saavik, Amanda is at the nurse's station along with another visitor. They are asking if you will admit them."

_Amanda is here?_ It was true that Phase II was ended or T'Paavana would never consider allowing visitors. But the strain of the last few days made her emotional controls weaker. She had expected to be alone for the next day until she was released from the hospital.

"Who is the other visitor?"

"Amanda introduced her as Nyota Uhura."

Saavik's eyebrows shot up her forehead. _Commander Uhura?_ Why was the woman here asking for her? Especially as she had no contact with the _Enterprise_ officers since Cartwright cancelled her transfer. In fact, other than Kirk, McCoy, and Spock, did any of the others know _she_ hadn't cancelled that transfer? Or sever the relationship with Spock?

Following that thought came one she hadn't had time to appreciate before: Spock hadn't sent that letter to her. Spock hadn't _rejected_ her. How freeing that thought was…

"Did they specify what this regarded?"

"No, only that it was important." Naturally, or they would have waited for her release. "Sa'd has cleared you, as you know, with the stipulation you may still prefer privacy. If I may make a suggestion, one Amanda made herself? Allow her to speak with you alone. If you decide the situation warrants it and you are comfortable in doing so, you can admit the other woman."

Unsaid by both of them was, were her controls fully capable? Still, it _was_ Amanda. With her experience, she would understand anything she saw.

_And even without it, _Saavik knew. She agreed to the suggestion and waited. The sun heated her back, and despite knowing Amanda _would_ understand any emotional lapse, she took the moment to breathe deeply and center herself. She darted a quick glimpse to the mirror to see if her appearance betrayed any signs of someone less than properly controlled. Her hair was tousled since she had just run her fingers through it, and she wore light gray hospital pants below the black tank top, her feet almost bare except for thin, slip on footwear. She was certainly more... casual than she normally appeared, but that was it.

She had just settled her hair and wondered if she should change when Amanda came in the room. Saavik was visited by a sense of _l'koihkeis_, except, despite her mind telling her she lived through a similar moment to this, she couldn't remember it.

The older woman wore light blue, tending to wear blue more and more once her eyes started fading to gray. Those eyes searched intently over Saavik as Amanda almost hurriedly crossed the floor, stopping just short of violating the Vulcan's personal space. The pastel robes made her a soft bright spot in the sterilized colors of the room.

"I'm glad you can receive company," Amanda said.

"Of course. Why would I not be?" The return expression mocked her calm answer, but she refused to concede it.

A smooth, aged hand reached for her arm, hesitated, and withdrew. "You look well." Again that fidgeting motion that almost touched her and stopped. "You lost weight though and--" Amanda's gaze went from her waist to her face. "--you look tired."

"Not an unusual amount for either issue, and I am already on a nutritional regimen to regain the weight."

She received a weak nod and slight smile. The hand hovering a her waist went to her arm, not really taking hold, but unable to stay still. Something suddenly occurred to her. Her head leaned to the side, and her eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Amanda, are you looking for reasons to touch me?"

The weak smile gained some strength. "I guess I've been caught. I'm worried about you."

"Illogical. My life was not threatened by this phase."

"I know. However..." Amanda frowned and the feigned lightness in her eyes withered. When she spoke, it seemed she changed the subject. "You might say my experience with 'Phase II' is limited in some ways since I don't experience it myself."

Never would Saavik say that, and she reprimanded herself for not seeing Amanda's concerns earlier, or that they'd lead to worry about pon farr. As always, Amanda was open on the subject, which was quite acceptable, although... the uncontrolled thought crossed Saavik's mind, _What if she knew about Spock... about Genesis_?

"I'm never afraid of my experiences with Sarek -- am I making you uncomfortable?"

"No." As long as the subject stayed away from pon farr with Spock, she was fine.

"I didn't think so, but I thought I should ask." Amanda bit her lip and took a deep breath. "I can't imagine what it'd be like if Sarek didn't have me to be with him." She didn't give Saavik time to answer, as her frown grew more troubled. "They didn't really leave you alone, did they?"

The past days whirled in a haze of heat and pain, but some more… sane periods burrowed through. "No. A healer, a female, came in, teaching me the newer meditative practices. I benefitted from them to a degree. She said they would have been more helpful if I had started as soon as I showed symptoms."

"I'm surprised. I've heard the new meditations have a low success rate."

That set off another sense of l'koihkeis; someone recently said the same thing – that the low success rate meant Saavik never would use meditation if lives were risked by pon farr. The words dashed around her memory, but the voice and person who said them stayed out of reach.

And another memory -- Amanda had argued against going through Phase II alone, hadn't she?

"The healer agreed. If meditation is not started within the first day, it will not work. It also has less success with bonded pairs, perhaps because the mind calls the partner and will not accept less than a connection through the bonding. However, as I have no consort, the latter is not a problem for me."

Amanda's eyes appeared very blue as they bore into her, and Saavik questioned if they actually had faded. "Do you know if--?" Amanda's voice and mouth grew firm, letting no doubt creep into those words. "They will find a cure for the hybrids disease, I know they will, and you need to know for the future if..."

Somehow from these anxious words, Saavik put together the question -- a marvel really because her mind felt less clear than normal. "It is one of the tests they performed. The results will tell me if I am likely to enter pon farr as has happened to other females."

Forgetting that touch might bother Saavik's returning control, chilled hands clutched tight on her wrists in reaction. She made no move to remove them, despite the flow of hard emotions skittering under the surface.

The way the older woman looked at her, Saavik wondered if she was supposed to make some return gesture. Why wasn't she _better_ at this? After hesitating, she moved her arms so the cool hands slid to a place where she could lightly lay her own hands on Amanda's wrists. The bright light in the other's eyes made her decide she had done the right thing.

"Amanda, worry has no benefit. We do not know the results of this test, and if it is positive, fear will not change it. If I find a way to survive this disease, I will find a way to survive pon farr."

A look came over Amanda's face, the one that always made Sarek and Spock wary. It meant she was ready to argue stubbornly about her method for pon farr survival, so Saavik changed the conversation. If even Sarek thought twice about confronting Amanda in these moments, she stood no chance. She dropped her hands, but Amanda didn't. "You did not come here merely to see if I was well."

"Nice try, but you won't distract me. Phase II isn't fatal, but pon farr is. You can't risk your life by trying the meditation approach."

"I believe I can do what I choose. The more important matter is--"

"The meditations don't work because they depend on using your biocontrols to overcome the Fires. And the Fires destroy your biocontrols!"

"I disagree. The meditations do work--"

"Rarely!"

Saavik pushed down a rising sense of exasperation – something along the level that Amanda was showing – and blamed it on the aftermath of Phase II. She went on as if uninterrupted. "—if started on the first day as the healer prescribed."

Amanda now withdrew her hands from Saavik's arms so she could use them to gesture emphatically. "There's a reason why it's called the Time of _Mating_, you stubborn--!" She got a hold of herself, barely. "Do I need to bring up that your controls aren't as strong as other Vulcans to begin with?"

Why couldn't Amanda feel _some_ sort of hesitancy in discussing personal matters? "Now you _are_ making me uncomfortable."

"I am not! Do not hide behind some repressed--"

Saavik's voice grew hard. "I will not have a mate forced on me because of pon farr."

"You would rather--"

"I will not be my Vulcan parent!"

Amanda stopped abruptly at this wall. "…Oh, Saavik…"

She reached out again, but Saavik couldn't take this conversation any more and changed the subject again. Taking a barely noticeable steadying breath, she asked formally, "T'Paavana said you brought a visitor?"

Amanda accepted the abrupt switch, but still rested a hand on Saavik's shoulder as she started to do before. She left it there, then stroked affectionately down the arm.

She took a steadying breath herself. "Something happened right after you entered quarantine, and this was the first chance we had to ask you about it. We thought it was too confidential to discuss over the comm lines, and Sa'd said you might receive visitors. I came with Commander Uhura because I thought one of the men might still bother you."

"Why did you not have Rhelthiz or Tu'ong discuss this with me?"

Amanda blinked, nonplussed, and then spoke in a whisper aimed at herself. "That's why Sarek gave me that look when I was making my case to come down here."

Saavik arched her eyebrows as she pointed out, "He no doubt saw the same fallacy in your argument. I am puzzled that he did not stop you."

Amanda smiled, much more herself now. "He is used to allowing me my humanity." That confused Saavik more and the other woman must have seen it. "He knew I needed to see you were all right for myself."

"Instead of accepting this fact from the hospital's highly skilled medical staff?" Saavik's voice lightened on the next words. "A most definite sign of humanity."

Amanda grinned and gave her arm a last squeeze before dropping her hands.

"However, I am still unsure as to what your other reason is for coming here. You referred to a situation?"

Amanda nodded and became brisk with business. "Saavik, do you remember contacting Commander Uhura a few days ago?"

She reacted skeptically. "I did so?"

"She says you did, about the hybrids disease and the Romulans being behind it."

"Amanda, I was quarantined."

"I know, but I've seen the message. You said in it that you had thought of a possible source for the data Spock and Jim are searching for."

Something simmered in her memory, but it seemed unconnected to this. Her voice became vague. "I am unaware that they are searching for any information."

But Amanda negated that, fortunately. "Yes, you are. The Phase II is blurring the days right before you came to the hospital. Focus."

But that time was so confused, a swirl of brief images and distorted sound, nothing to grab and make clear.

A slow, unconscious transformation took place. Amanda, reassured about Saavik's well being, gained confidence and control. While Saavik, with her fatigue, over stimulated energy, and inability to recall vital information, stared at the floor, tiny lines of strain creasing her forehead and around her eyes. They lifted and beseeched Amanda.

Now it was the older woman who soothed the younger. "Let's go back to early that day, before you strongly suffered from Phase II. You ran a simulator test that morning, remember? Jim, Leonard, and Spock ran the same test. They agree with your theory that it's the Phase I parallel."

Some of the haze cleared from Saavik's eyes. "It is not my theory, not fully. Lieutenant Warfield inspired it with a statement she made to Captain Hunter." She glanced up surreptitiously as that earlier deja vu became clearer. "You and I spoke later that day, after I ran the simulation?"

"Yes." Amanda grew more Vulcan, using the disciplines to control her emotions. It and phrasing things as only facts eased things for Saavik.

"We discussed a message from Captain Hunter." This time, when the haze cleared, it wasn't a relief. "Starfleet said I am a liability to those around me and placed me on inactive status." Amanda started to speak, but Saavik overrode her. "And then... Valeris..." Her eyes closed, and she stayed quiet until a thought made them fly open. She spoke with sudden sharpness. "And Spock. Everything is still well in that quarter?"

"Yes," Amanda reassured her. "He's fine. You saved him."

Saavik started to argue. Those words seemed too strong somehow, but Amanda wouldn't allow it. She forced the conversation on.

"Now, do you remember when you recorded the message for Commander Uhura? The timestamp on the message marks it as being soon after you came back to the hospital. Right before your quarantine."

The fog returned, blurring her concentration. Some vague words with Kirk after Valeris, but it was the tone more than a clear memory that told her it was an argument. She couldn't remember what was actually said. Then Rhelthiz and Amanda -- that was more lucid, the two cool, caring touches holding back the fever for too brief a time. Then nothing but a daze of uncertain memory. "What did I state in this message?"

"That Command Uhura was needed to find this information source. It's someone she knows, and contacting them requires her expertise in communications." Amanda suddenly looked doubtful. "You also said she's already heard about your homeworld so she's not a security risk. Is that true?"

Saavik interrupted. "It is not my homeworld. Vulcan is."

Amanda corrected herself. "Yes, of course. I know."

Of course she did. Whenever Saavik had struggled with the rigors of getting citizenship, Amanda was the one who renewed her strength by drawing close and whispering two words: of Vulcan. To be Saavik _of Vulcan_..._ on my own terms..._

Amanda showed a mixture of aggravation and jest as she continued discussing Hellguard. "For a planet that's such a secret, an awful lot of people know about the whole thing."

"I did not tell Commander Uhura directly. Nor does she know all the details," Saavik said vaguely. She still struggled with remembering if she made this contact. "Telling Admiral Nogura about Thieurrull was once necessary for a mission. As the communications officer, it was her duty to ensure the transmission remained clear and secure. It was how she heard what I said. We never spoke about the incident, although we acknowledged it had happened."

"She said the same thing. She was surprised you mentioned it in your message. She's getting the same security clearance as Rhelthiz. She only knows Phase II as a part of this disease."

Saavik thought again how fortunate it was Amanda first came into the room alone.

"Your message didn't say much else. Does any of this help?"

Saavik's eyes darted back and forth as she stared into the confusion surrounding her memory, and came back with nothing.

"This source," Amanda suggested. "You mentioned both Hellguard and the Romulans indirectly in your message. Is it someone you know in the Empire?"

Saavik's response crossed disdain with stiffness. "I do not speak with anyone in the Empire."

"Only a suggestion," Amanda remarked.

Saavik asked herself sharply, "Why did I not include this source in my message?"

The build up of energy was creeping to the surface, but other than noting it, she couldn't stop to do anything else. Not when something as important as this had already waited days until she was available.

"You probably thought someone else might intercept the message, someone in Command possibly, and you needed to keep the details secret."

"Except my sense of secrecy has brought only confusion!"

She started pacing. Without being conscious of it, her right hand balled into a fist and banged on her thigh. The display was minor, if Saavik wasn't Vulcan.

Amanda came up to her, speaking gently. "Do you need to be alone? I can return later."

"No, don't go!" Saavik immediately answered. She inhaled deeply, and some of the excess energy escaped in the exhale. "I apologize. My outburst was illogical."

"Perhaps the message is misleading. Maybe you meant the source wasn't in the Empire after all."

"If I did not mean the Romulans, then who? Why the secrecy? Why could Starfleet not know who I meant?" Her fist pounded again, more rapidly this time.

"A hate group," Amanda said quietly. The suggestion, issued this way, inserted itself without breaking Saavik's far off concentration.

"A hate group," Saavik muttered in a stream of consciousness. "The reason for the secrecy? A link here perhaps? Or someone in Command as a part of it? Someone like Cartwright, someone like Valeris... I am supposed to talk to Valeris' tribunal, I promised her so. She would not sign otherwise."

"Focus," Amanda whispered.

Saavik stopped, closed her eyes, and breathed deeply again. This time, a wave of quiet settled across her, but her fist stayed against her leg. "To return to our purpose, I do not remember investigating the prejudicial groups, although I do remember reading Captain Kirk's latest status report." Without consciously realizing it, she started pacing again as she thought. "But I do not have any contact with human extremists anymore than I do with the Romulans."

"If that's so," Amanda remarked dryly, "you should get rid of that Romulan coin. You certainly look like you have contacts when you keep that around."

Saavik abruptly stopped again. A gold streak of color, a circular bright light... Now the haze cleared for good. She whirled around. "The coin... Yes, the coin. That is who I meant."

"I don't understand."

"The person who gave me the coin is the one I referred to in my message."

Amanda accused, "You said Spock gave it to you."

"He did. However, someone else originally gave it to him to pass on to me. Not a contact I made in the Empire per se, but one I made on the _Enterprise_." A rhythmic pulsing pain seeped into her perception, and she looked down to where her fist hit her thigh. She stared at her clenched hand as if it were a startling, alien thing apart from her. It explained the bruise on her leg that had appeared sometime during Phase II. She deliberately opened her fingers and put the flat palm at her side.

"And this someone else is Romulan?"

Saavik debated with herself if Amanda had an ulterior meaning in that question. "Correct. Commander Uhura was on the same mission where I encountered him. In fact, she most likely had more contact with him than I did." Since she avoided the Romulan other than warning him against harming anyone on _Enterprise_. And later releasing him so he may not die with everyone else.

"Should I bring her in?" Amanda asked. _Are you up to it?_

Her fatigue remained, as did a portion of the restlessness, but Saavik thought she could control it. And after all, "Yes, as it is more efficient if I speak directly with her. However, I will need a moment."

Amanda only nodded. "I'll take my time in coming back. If it does become too much for you…"

The rest was left unsaid. If Saavik's controls became in danger of going lax again, Amanda would get Uhura out of the room.

Saavik caught her reflection in the mirror. The commander was a superior officer, and this was no way to appear in front of one.

"Amanda, a moment," she called.

Amanda turned at her name, getting the point quickly as Saavik moved about for a change of clothes. The older woman sat down out of the way as the Vulcan stripped off what she was wearing.

"It may be illogical," Amanda said, making conversation, "but I'm glad I came. I wasn't able to concentrate on my work at all today, even though I had Matt in to discuss his thesis."

Saavik looked up from the fawn colored tunic and pants in her hands. "Matthew Fzitzer? I thought you were dismissing him. He can transfer to another teacher."

"No, _you_ wanted me to dismiss him. I never agreed. Personally, I think you're jealous." A warm look took out the sting.

Saavik hadn't felt any bite from the remark. She drew the tunic over her head. "That statement is illogical."

"Is it? You never liked Matt since the day I took him in, but he needed the help."

"He does not seek you out for your expertise in linguistics. It is only his reported reason for taking the doctoral student position." Saavik's excess energy now helped as she was almost done changing, moving at a speed that would have gotten her to the bridge for a red alert ahead of everyone else.

"He's having trouble getting acclimated here."

Proper shoes exchanged for her slip-ons... "His problems with acclimation translates to the fact he desires a Vulcan who does not desire him in return. He believes you hold a secret that will reverse the situation."

Amanda sighed. "Not the first person to think so. But still--"

"You yourself called him 'clingy'." She drew a brush through her hair, and smoothed her clothes.

"I know, but his work shows true brilliance. I can't pass that by. And maybe I can help. Don't give me that look. It could be worse. I told Sarek I could be one of those aging human women who takes in stray cats."

Saavik turned at the last word, wondering if Amanda meant something about her name. But the simple smile told her nothing. "His reply?"

"He said he'd prefer the cats."

Saavik wondered again, and then put it aside. "To Matthew Fzitzer? I agree with Ambassador Sarek."

"I still think you're jealous. You don't need to be, you know. You're still the favorite of my strays."

Saavik straightened from the mirror. "You are being deliberately provoking, which I will not answer. I am ready for Commander Uhura."

Again Amanda merely nodded, but her eyes sparkled. She left, and Saavik took stock of her emotional controls. The energy still pulsed under her skin; even Amanda's gentle banter eased things only so far. Still, she'd never make a senior officer wait when she believed she was prepared to meet them. Not when something so vital was at stake.

Perhaps that was why when the other two women came in, all Saavik saw was the communication officer's Starfleet uniform. She felt she no longer had the right to wear hers, once she was made inactive. Her eyes drank in Uhura's as she remembered the weight and feel of her own, the touch of the shoulder braid in her fingers as she fastened it, the symbolism it always had for her. Achievement, place, and the thing that made her push forward when she should be alone in her hospital room: duty. Any hesitation not to let Uhura see the leftovers of Phase II disappeared next to that.

It became her focal point. Her back shifted subtly from its already straight posture to being at attention. She raised her gaze and stopped short at Uhura's expression. Guarded with barely concealed suspicion, the mahogany face reminded Saavik again that they discovered the truth about Valeris-- even the suspected truth -- after Kirk and McCoy came to Vulcan. Uhura, Mr. Scott, Commander Chekov... they still believed she had rejected them and Spock.

Amanda saw it too. "We also discussed, all of us – Jim, Nyota, and myself – about everything we've discovered about Cartwright and Valeris." She smiled pointedly. "Didn't we?"

Uhura turned to her and smiled back at the reminder. "So we did." Her expression lost its suspicion, and if it wasn't as friendly as it was in past years, Saavik decided it was the most she could expect.

"I'm very sorry to hear about this disease, Saavik." Uhura's stiffness softened even more. "And I'm sorry to hear about how many of your friends have already died."

Saavik kept to herself the fact that she and the other Vulcan/Romulan hybrids didn't think of themselves as friends.

"Whatever I can do to help," Uhura was saying, "you know I will."

More and more of the straggled thoughts Saavik had when she sent the message sharpened into clarity. "I do, Commander. Your service honors us, and this task is well suited to your talents."

Amanda motioned Uhura to take a seat. She was pulling one of the chairs over when she asked, "Amanda says we both know someone who can get us the information we need?"

Saavik remained standing and nodded. She said a name she thought she'd never say again. "Archernar."

"Archernar? Who… Wait a minute! _Archernar_?" Uhura repeated in disbelief. She had almost sat down, but now jumped back up to her feet. "Just what information do you expect me to get from him?"

"The records for the colony on Thieurrull as well as those for myself and the other hybrids." Saavik waited while she saw the communications officer translate Thieurrull into Hellguard. "If the Romulans created this disease as early as then, it will be in those records. If the disease was created more recently, the architects of it will still have accessed those records to design it. Archernar might be able to find who has those records now, and if they are responsible for the disease. In any case, the data will, perhaps, give biological history for the others and myself. The medical team may find that of great use."

"Saavik," Amanda interrupted and then stopped. She shook her head. "Do those records even exist anymore? The colony was abandoned. No one even admits that you and the other hybrids are alive. They must have removed everything to do with you."

But once Saavik's memory returned, her full argument came back with it. "Too much knowledge from Thieurrull was used in the manufacturing of this disease. Someone from the original colony or with access to its records used those events as a source. Archernar has access to such people and information, if it is true the Romulans created the disease."

Amanda asked, "Is this true? About this Archernar?"

Uhura robbed a spot between her eyes as if it throbbed. "It's true that he certainly has worked his fingers into every nook and cranny of the Empire. At least in the past, he had. But, Saavik, listen. He's more likely to do this if you're the one who's asking."

_His voice so intense as he grabbed her shoulders... "Come with me!" He hurried on even though she froze at his touch. "The Universe is wide," he whispered, "and you were meant for better things."_

"I hardly see how it makes a difference who makes the request."

Uhura made an impatient noise. "Oh, of course you do. You're the reason why he pleaded for the _Enterprise_'s safety against the Romulans around Hellguard. And wasn't there a rumor he wanted you to go off with him?"

"Excuse me?" Amanda interrupted. She bore a striking resemblance to a sehlat who perks up at an interesting sound. She gave Saavik a keen look. "I'm sorry to drag down the conversation, but who is this person?"

Saavik refused to look at her. "Someone you do not need to know."

"You're wrong. He seems to be someone I need to know about, at least."

When Saavik said nothing, Uhura answered since she was the only one willing to do so. "On the mission to Saavik's former planet, _Enterprise_ took aboard a supposedly failing ship. Archernar was the owner. He stayed on board as a cross between a guest and a prisoner, and he did buy us time from the Romulans pursuing us. And he _would_ be much more receptive to Saavik making the request more than anyone else."

"Really?" Amanda said with another look in her direction. "How interesting. I never thought about the other side of the Neutral Zone when I asked you about interested--" Saavik's sharp look gave the rest of that statement an early death. "Never mind. What if what she says is true? What if he'll only listen to you?"

"He will listen to anyone who pays for his services. Furthermore, I am here in the hospital until tomorrow afternoon without the necessary equipment and this cannot wait. In addition to this being Commander Uhura's area of expertise."

It certainly was true that time was too important to waste. Uhura sighed. "All right. You do know he's going to make you pay a high price for this."

"I will pay or do whatever it takes to get that information," Saavik said.

Uhura grinned. The challenge on hand made her apparently forget her earlier distrust. "It's a good thing Archernar didn't hear that offer. But the real problem isn't the price. Do you have any idea on how to contact him?"

"No." Saavik scowled. "Perhaps I did not say so specifically, but I have no connection to him."

Uhura's grin grew bigger. "So, I only have to find some way to speak to someone who invented the Romulan word for extortion, ask him to find records on a colony that's taboo to talk about, so we can find out if they created a disease no one wants to take credit for, against a group of people the Romulans say aren't alive. Is that it?"

Saavik nodded. "Yes. You have summarized it quite correctly."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence. You certainly don't give small challenges, do you?"

"One cannot develop without accepting great challenges."

"Is that Surak?"

Saavik blinked. Had that really sounded like Surak? "No, but I am honored you thought so."

"Can this be done?" Amanda asked.

Uhura's humor immediately sobered. "I see two problems. The first, contacting him without the Empire or Starfleet Command discovering us. Second is what you mentioned -- do these records still exist? But, if they do, he is a good choice to find them."

Saavik agreed. "I will gather a list of what I can use for payment or trade. If you will wait one moment." She crossed to a small table next to her hospital bed, grabbing a padd to make that list. Surprisingly, Uhura forgot about the sensitivity of Vulcan hearing, or maybe her whispering didn't mean she was keeping her comment a secret?

In a low aside to Amanda, Uhura muttered, "If I mention she's willing trade, his reply might get obscene."

Saavik imagined Amanda's return smile, but when she spoke, the older woman was quite serious. "You do think this Romulan will be willing to help? If he is paid?"

"All comments aside," Uhura replied, "I think he will. For her."

Saavik ignored that. And the memory of how he promised _I can show you worlds you never dreamed of. I can give you anything – a ship, a home... _How his face drew close, how his hands were gentle, and how his smile was finally real.

But it didn't delude her about who he was.

"And, she's right, he'll do this for his fee if nothing else. But we are asking him to put his head in a noose by trying to find that information. Although, from what little I know about him, he'll probably enjoy the dare."

Saavik returned, deciding not to show she had heard what they said, and handed Uhura a padd. "That lists the items and the amounts I mentioned."

Amanda said, "If this Archernar needs any more for his fee, Vulcan itself will take the responsibility, I'm sure."

But Saavik shook her head. "I prefer to do this alone, or if necessary, I will speak with the other hybrids."

Amanda turned to her sharply, but said nothing.

Uhura tucked the padd away while Saavik gave a last thought to the items on the list. So much to part with... but necessary.

"I'll do everything I can, you know that. But this won't be easy."

"No, it will not. However, we must succeed, and this is our best avenue. If it fails, even with the stasis units we may not have enough time to pursue another direction."

Uhura stared at her, clearly remembering the truth. Despite her current good health, Saavik was on a clock, rapidly counting down how much longer she had to live. For the patients in the third phase, the countdown was almost finished.

"Then I'd better get started," Uhura said, hushed. She cleared her throat. "I'll let you know as soon as I have any news."

"I appreciate it, Commander. Obviously, if Archernar can retrieve the data, the sooner I receive it the better."

Uhura's eyes narrowed, and when she agreed, she sounded unsure. "Of course." She said nothing, as she seemed to think something over. Finally, she admitted, "I owe you an apology. Right after we found out Valeris was the traitor, I thought you might have sent that letter to Spock to set a place for her. I only thought it for a second, and I'm ashamed of it, but I did think it. I'm sorry."

"Commander?" Saavik paused. "I owe you an apology as well. My message was unclear. I never intended for you to come to Vulcan. This task was readily accomplished from Earth. My ambiguity has caused you an unnecessary trip."

Uhura didn't quite stifle an exclamation, and Saavik berated herself again for causing this situation. Too much time wasted! If only she had thought more clearly that night! Found a way to get her message across, even with the necessary precautions of who might be listening.

But Phase II--

Be damned Phase II. She had a _duty!_

"You know what?" Uhura suddenly said. "Don't worry about it. Coming here means I get to work with Captain Kirk again. In this case, Starfleet Command not knowing about an unnecessary trip won't hurt them. And in the end, we may find I _did_ need to come here."

"I appreciate your generosity, Commander."

At last, that old smile she remembered came out. "It's not so much generosity as selfishness. I'd rather do this than what I was doing back on Earth. And I had better stop standing around here and actually get to work."

Saavik nodded, and they started to leave. Amanda looked over her shoulder as she started crossing through the door, and Saavik didn't know she formed a silhouette against the brightness outside.

"Excuse me," Amanda said to Uhura before switching to Vulcan. She walked across the line so she became another silhouette next to Saavik who felt the same lightly placed fingertips as before against her cheek. "I could stop by later, if that's all right."

"Your work--"

A gentle thumb was placed on her lips. "No such tired, old arguments, please. I only want an answer if I can come back tonight. After you've had some privacy?"

Saavik nodded slightly under those fingers, the tenderness a balm on the hard reality that she had nothing more to do to be part of the fight for her own life. And with her memory back, she remembered how this cool touch soothed as much as the warm voice when she was returning to the hospital. How thankful she had been that this gentleness hadn't seen her violence later.

Unlike Rhelthiz who, like Amanda, said it didn't matter.

Which brought something else to mind, something hitting her side, pushing all the air out of her lungs. She imagined how the Carreon must have relived that over and over, striking a patient, a friend--

"Amanda, will you pass on a message? Tell Rhelthiz that I now recall her hitting me quite deliberately with the full strength of her tail when they moved me into quarantine."

Amanda grinned. "She said you deserved it. You were being a problem patient. If it's any consolation, you put a nice Saavik shaped dent in it."

"We will discuss that when I next see her."

Amanda gave a Vulcan smile -- a special light in the eyes. "I'll tell her she should stop by."

A last touch and she left. Saavik watched the two walk out and let them go with the silent resolution, _I will not be excluded from helping for long._


	13. Chapter 13

Uhura's enthusiasm dimmed at the sight of that solitary figure Saavik made in her room. It remained dimmed as she and Amanda passed the nurse's station. Someone burst from the hallway on their right, a Vulcan male looking wane and drawn. In the next second, Leonard McCoy slammed out of the Phase III ward. He passed by Uhura without ever seeing her.

"Vi'hai! You can't leave!"

The Vulcan, who must be Vi'hai, turned around calmly. "I most certainly can, Dr. McCoy. I am not a prisoner here."

"You've got to give us more time," McCoy begged. "You can't give up hope that we'll find a remedy for the disease."

The bottom of Uhura's stomach dropped out. So, as she expected, this Vulcan was a hybrid like Saavik, but unlike her, he showed the terrible effects of the disease. He swayed ever so slightly on his feet, and his eyes were dull. She worried he no longer fought to stay alive.

The only strong thing about him was his voice when he answered McCoy. "I am not saying anything to contradict your intentions. I am saying I will not wait for them here. You have everything from me that you need. Every test you can give, I have taken. If you need anything more, I can return temporarily. However, I am going home while I have the strength to do so. I will not die here if at all possible, and I need to partake in my own mourning rite for my wife."

He strode away. McCoy started after him when someone else came out of the ward. Someone with reptilian features, black skin and blue striping, with the talons on her feet scratching the stone flooring. Uhura guessed this was Rrelthiz, and watched as she rushed up to McCoy and got in his path. He snarled at her to move out of the way, and she refused silently. She placed an equally taloned hand carefully on his arm. Uhura watched McCoy's shoulders slump.

_We're losing. _She could see it in every line of McCoy's stooped frame. Worse than that thought was the doubt in the doctor's beaten expression. Losing seemed to be the only thing they were going to do.

She almost went to him, but knew from years of experience he'd rather be alone now. Amanda made a small sound next to her, and fear showed on the older woman's face for one naked second. She clamped down on it with a strength Uhura admired, and then led the way down a different hallway than the one they used to come in. The passageways echoed their hollow footsteps back to them with no conversation to lighten their mood.

It took the sound of Kirk's voice coming out of an office to dispel Uhura's gloom. Even if he was yelling.

"Stop saying there's nothing you can do and tell me what you can!"

Spock sat in front of a communications station -- a quite advanced station, Uhura noted. The light from the screen was the only thing brightening the darkness, and yet, the windowless office with its four work areas in the corners felt warm and cozy, not depressing. Kirk leaned over the Vulcan's right shoulder, venting his spleen on whoever was on the other end of the line. She didn't hear the actual words in the reply, but she heard the angry tone. Kirk's frustration was spreading.

With a small goodbye, Amanda left her.

"Gentlemen," Uhura said quietly.

They both turned, and at Spock's raised eyebrow and Kirk's broad smile, she grinned happily. Even with her former captain's lack of uniform reminding her he was retired, she felt like she came home.

"Uhura! When did you -- hold on, Miller, please, one minute." Kirk cut the volume on the comm line. "Uhura, good to see you. Sorry we couldn't be there when you got in."

"Amanda and Sarek took care of that, Captain." She didn't care what anyone said. She was going to call him captain. She noticed he had slimmed down even in the short time since she last saw him; his face was tanned from Vulcan's sun and she saw the old spark of purpose. "And gave me a general debriefing. The most important thing is, I have a contact for the Romulans."

That got the same surprised response as when she walked in. "Perfect timing. We just ran into another wall. Who's your contact?"

"Someone Mr. Spock knows too." She searched for the right words. "He's… an information broker and a Romulan named Archernar. He won't know anything about the disease himself -- at least, I don't think he will -- but he can find out who does."

Spock's eyebrow rose higher. "Interesting. I had not thought of him."

"Can he do it?" Kirk asked.

Spock thought about it, then nodded. "It is the sort of situation where he insinuates himself."

Kirk's mouth pulled down wryly. "Sounds like we're selling our soul to the devil. But it's still good work getting the contact, Uhura."

"Actually, sir--" She didn't know why she hadn't said this right away, but somehow she still wasn't comfortable mentioning this name in front of Spock… or Kirk for that matter, what with the transfer problem. "Saavik came up with this plan."

She waited, but Spock only nodded and Kirk's mouth tipped up at the corner. "One more for her then. All right, how do we get a hold of him?"

Uhura answered. "That's a problem. We don't know." She didn't mention Saavik thought she could do this easily.

Kirk looked over his shoulder back at the comm station. "Well, if he's a part of the crowd you say he is..." He waved Uhura out of the way of the visual pickups and reopened the line. "Thanks, Miller."

"Who's there?" the man on the line demanded. Uhura saw a narrow eyed, strong-jawed human with a thick, unruly snatch of salt and pepper hair.

Kirk said, "Someone came in, but I got rid of them. Don't worry. I know we need to keep this quiet."

Miller's glower spoke volumes on how quietly he wanted this kept. "Nobody better'd see me as a snitch for Starfleet. My tradin' goes bust if they do."

"Understood. Like I already said, this thing is personal. Starfleet is out of it. Now, Spock came up with a name, somebody who may have what we need. His name's Archernar, a Romulan."

"Never heard of him."

Uhura bet that was true. Miller and Archernar were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Miller must be an independent trader; he shipped goods, sometimes contraband, and knew nothing else but the low-end contacts he needed for his work. Archernar was in the power circles of the Empire, mingling with the Praetor, the Senators, and the noble houses. Despite his smuggler's ship, he was far above dealing with the rank and file at Miller's end.

How to signal that to Kirk?

As she found out, she didn't need to. Kirk knew the way things lay, even with the scant information she passed on to him so far.

"He deals in different things than you. Think of him as--" The smile was for her. "-- an information broker."

"Oh," Miller said sourly. "One of them. How high up?"

"Very," Spock answered.

The trader frowned, thinking. "Okay. I got no one in that circle, but I do got somebody who brushes with it. Maybe he gets a name and they get somebody else's. It means me cashing a favor with my guy, and he doing that with his until we get a body that knows this Rommie. You gotta make it worth our while."

Uhura knew Kirk could handle that part while she needed to start taking care of hers. She saw a computer station out of sight from the comm pickups, and sat down at it. She never exaggerated to Saavik or Amanda about how hard this was going to be, not when it included skirting around Federation Intelligence, Starfleet Command, and every pair of pointed ears but one in the Romulan Empire.

One good way to keep the wrong eyes out -- the first thing she _must _consider was the encryption system. Usually, that was no problem. She had something unbreakable -- _currently_, she smiled to herself -- and in fact, it was her present assignment. But it belonged to Starfleet; if she used it, she gave it to Archernar and that meant his Empire got it in their hands.

What could she use that didn't matter if she gave it away? Not to mention, didn't announce she was a member of the Federation to the Romulans who might see it go by.

She _had_ to use an encryption code with Archernar being who he was. He must have people watching his moves, and if a message came in unencrypted, it'd look even more guilty. Even if his watchers let it go by, he'd probably think it was a trap.

So she went outside of what was available from Starfleet, searching the vast network put at her hands through her station -- _bless the Vulcans_ -- and grabbed something standard. In fact, if the data tagged to it was correct, and she bet it was, this was first plucked from people like Miller.

She opened it up, and immediately tsk tsk'ed whoever created it. She knew not to compare it to Starfleet's necessary complicated levels, but really… an infant could break this. However, if she put a couple hours into the algorithm, it'd be usable and still something she didn't have to worry about passing to Archernar.

She just started that when someone came into her peripheral vision: a Starfleet lieutenant and a Vulcan woman. The woman with her dignity and bearing made the human man in his uniform look barely more than a boy. It was unintentional.

The Vulcan spoke first. "Commander?"

Uhura ducked a quick look over at Kirk and Spock, afraid the paranoid Miller might overhear other people in the room. But the comm station was dark, its light replaced by a small lamp, while they worked in whispers.

She stood up, splitting her fingers in the traditional salute. "Live long and prosper. I come to serve."

The Vulcan returned the greeting. "Your service honors us. Peace and long life. I am T'xYa. Ambassador Sarek has requested you be given access to necessary project files."

_Thank you, Sarek!_

Uhura said nothing more, merely moved out of the way so T'xYa could work at the station. When she worked with different cultures, Uhura tried to give them the working atmosphere they preferred. To Vulcans, saying anything more would have been inefficient as it was unnecessary. T'xYa seemed to appreciate the courtesy, from what Uhura could see in that usual stoic manner.

She glanced at the lieutenant who was staring at Kirk. "Can I help you?" she asked.

He broke off his stare, and turned deep green eyes on her. "Actually, sir--" Uhura stared back pointedly. "I mean ma'am. I'm here to see if I can help you. Starfleet sent out your orders – how you're on loan to Vulcan. We just wanted to make sure you had everything you need."

He suggested a new uniform, pointing out how his, like all others worn here, was of a much lighter weight. She immediately took him up on this offer, and watched his eyes stray back to Kirk as he said he'd take care of it. She waited for the inevitable.

"Is that really–?" he asked.

"James T. Kirk," she supplied. "Yes, that's him."

He surprised her by turning his wide eyes not on Kirk or Spock, but on her. "Are you Nyota Uhura?"

"Well… yes."

"I'm sorry, Commander. They didn't tell me your name, just said to follow T'xYa. Here I almost lost this chance to tell you how much I admire your work."

_Well, well!_

She bestowed her best smile and a richly voiced thank you that was guaranteed to keep him talking. It worked. He started pouring out stories about his mission here on Vulcan -- the coveted Kelt'an project. Uhura herself wanted to work on it, but the offer came when Kirk faced his last days as captain. She had refused to leave _Enterprise_ as long as he was there.

Her admirer asked questions about her own project back on Earth, the Lisencrypt system. Classified, but she could answer general questions, and her new friend, Mason Bjain, was an officer. He knew the rules. Talking with him showed his experience and more than a good amount of potential. It made for an interesting diversion as she watched T'xYa open files, making sure Uhura's new access got her into the things she needed. When the Vulcan woman's eyes suddenly fluttered closed and stayed that way, Uhura's breath caught in her chest. She saw that same expression from Spock before, such as when Peter Preston's wounded body, carried in a shaken Scotty's arms, came on the bridge during the battle with Khan.

T'xYa opened her eyes and went on as if her pause never happened, but Uhura knew, as if she had any doubts, that what she was going to read in those files could strike even a Vulcan deeply.

That made it even more unexpected when she turned back to Bjain and saw his expression go from hero worship to male appreciation.

_Why you sweet thing._ It softened the blow she just saw T'xYa take. And it was harmless. _This should be entertaining._

But he didn't get a chance to say anything more, because work interceded. Spock came from the desk and stopped next to T'xYa. "Is all in order?"

She said it was. "Will you give Commander Uhura the necessary briefing?"

Spock said he would, and Uhura thought something passed between the Vulcans. The something in that file...

Bjain recognized she had to work. "I'll see that your new uniform gets delivered, Commander, and if you have any free time, I can introduce you to the Kelt'an team."

She managed a smile, and answered that she'd contact him before she left. Spock gestured for Uhura to re-take her station. "Commander, you will remember the planet that created the oxygen depletion weapon used on StarFleet Command?"

"The same mission where we met Archernar. Yes, sir."

He nodded. "This briefing information regards this world and the Vulcan starships captured there."

She began to see what made T'xYa close her eyes... perhaps in grieving. "I think I understand, Mr. Spock. Whatever happened then is behind this disease."

"A possible reason why someone has decided the disease necessary, yes."

Necessary to kill so many people? The thought was sickening, but she was a veteran officer of too many disasters. So she only nodded to Spock.

Kirk's voice came from behind her. "Uhura." She glanced over her shoulder. "You already know, we're here for Vulcan. Keep that in mind when you go through that information. You're going to see why Starfleet has to be kept in the dark."

Her eyes went from him to Spock and back again. "If you think it's necessary, sir, I already believe it."

He gave her that smile that had strengthened her in countless bad times, but a shadow hung over it. Retirement or what they now faced? "Let us know if you have any questions."

"Aye, sir." She was glad he didn't question her use of his rank -- he knew better -- and she turned around as Spock went back to work with Kirk.

For a second, she treasured the sound of their voices behind her, the way they once sounded on _Enterprise_. She almost pictured turning around and finding Sulu and Chekov at the helm, the captain calling Scotty down in Engineering as McCoy came out of the lift.

She set the computer to give her the briefing files in audio, deciding she was ready for whatever was in them while she got on with that algorithm. She was a professional after all.

And the information was just what she was expecting. Four ships lost near the Neutral Zone, their crews taken alive during a time when Romulans were the faceless enemy, long before _Enterprise_ saw them on a viewscreen. She managed such a strong focus, she was in the middle of a tricky calculation when Spock's old report on Hellguard sounded in her ears.

"Dear lord..."

Over five hundred people tortured until it made their Vulcan disciplines disappear, made them almost insane. And then, when the very thought made Uhura close her eyes in the same graceful gesture of grief as T'xYa, she heard the unbelievable fact about so many Vulcans... raped.

Resulting in Saavik and those like her.

Uhura _knew_ Saavik's past was violent, brutal, but never in the report she overhead Saavik give Nogura were these harsh details described.

She didn't think she made a sound, but Kirk called her name in soft question. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the two men watching her. She straightened her shoulders. "Nothing, Captain."

She gathered her professional senses about her, developed from so many years of viewing the universe's tragedies. Ironically, she learned some of these abilities from studying Spock, learning how Vulcans kept their discipline in the worst possible circumstances.

_Acknowledge the emotion, learn what it teaches you, and then you will be able to go beyond its control._

A basic Vulcan exercise, perhaps not worded in their best manner, but she didn't use it to be Vulcan. Just a human needing control in the middle of a crisis. And the irony was using it now so she, like T'xYa, might show that brief gesture of mourning and then move on with her duty. The best thing she'd learned from Kirk: don't wallow in grief or fear. Take action.

Had T'xYa known someone in those lost crews -- friends, family? -- or did she grieve in general for the terrible loss?

The report continued to talk into her ear as she focused again on the algorithm. Using an existing one was saving her a lot of time, even with the modifications. If she increased the variable-length key and tackled the problem someone reported of detecting – although not breaking – a block of variants in only twenty-five rounds…

Her old ship's name brought her attention back to the audio report. _Enterprise_ rescuing a Vulcan woman named T'Pren – _Enterprise_ going to Hellguard to stop a Romulan weapon. If this wasn't personal to her before, it was now. She and her ship had been part, albeit a small part, of this whole thing without even knowing it.

The synopsis on the disease sounded in her ear as finished her cipher work. With the encryption system now unique, she would have to enclose a decoding key for Archernar's use. Which meant -- she shook her head – she had to bury it from prying eyes and make it pop up for Archernar.

She smiled. She loved a challenge.

The report finished on the bleak statistics for the ill and dead Vulcan/Romulan hybrids. For a moment, Uhura just stared at her screen thinking of the mind that created this disease, forcing Saavik and the others to live their parents' lives. Their Vulcan parent's life and death.

Uhura's fingers moved across the computer controls, her eyes watching the code she put together, one part her encryption system, another part a sniffer program to find possible communications routes where she could hide her signal. Her mind did this as a matter of routine, wanting to stray to the information she just heard, but the most important thing was for her to accomplish what she was brought here to do.

She set the sniffer to check what systems she could take advantage of from here to the Neutral Zone. She told it to search other things – paths to the Klingons, the Frontier, and various ships including the _Excelsior_ – to keep someone who came across the wandering little program from guessing its real goal.

She sent it on its way and watched its results stream pass the screen, once in a while noting something she could use, an unmanned network, an automatic beacon. But she turned away from it and let the sniffer work.

What else to do?

She prepared her message, text only, writing in Federation Standard now, but making it ready to run through the translator, including a switch to the Romulan alphabet.

"You may remember me. It was some years ago--" She didn't know the Romulan calendar off the top of her head so she couldn't give him that, and inserting the Stardate announced Starfleet was contacting him: too dangerous if someone broke into the line. "--when you and I, plus quite a number of my friends, embarked on a common _enterprise_." The word was emphasized in her mind, but not in the message.

"Whether you remember me or not, I need you to contact me back. I need your expertise in finding--" She almost smiled. "–information."

The computer translated the message and she checked the whole thing again. The sniffer came back, and she picked apart the vast data to find what she wanted.

Kirk spoke from the computer station at her rear left. "Spock, this list..."

"The first section is a detailed synopsis for members of the main medical staff working on the disease. It lists any prejudice they exhibited against the infected hybrids before the disease. The obvious example is Srre who has been honest about his bias against his half-brother before their reconciliation. The remaining section of the report encompasses the members of the medical staff who had contact with the hybrids prior to the disease. Therefore, they are suspect in either creating the disease and/or dispensing it."

"But some of the people listed here aren't at the Academy."

"Quite correct, Captain. They are either in private practice or attached to a hospital located elsewhere on the planet."

"Because the hybrids don't all live in the ShiKahr area. And they don't come to the Science Academy for simple problems."

When nothing else was said, Uhura glanced over and saw Kirk sit down on a corner of the desk, Spock already in the chair. With the lights on all the desks now on, the room was brighter but still cozy with its small pools of soft illumination. Rather like the _Enterprise_.

Kirk said to Spock, "I see your question mark next to Aakheltok's name."

Uhura fished around in her memory and connected with Amanda's debriefing. Aakheltok was the Andorian chief medical officer aboard Saavik's ship.

"I do not have a question mark next to anyone's name," Spock said. "However, I understand this is your way of expressing my hesitation in placing the doctor's name on that list."

"And you're protesting for the sake of protesting. But I've wondered about this same point. It's one thing to get at the Vulcan-Romulans living here. But Saavik... Saavik was onboard a Starfleet vessel. Even when a ship's at a safe port, you can't just walk on board and inject someone with a disease. So how _did_ they get her? Aakheltok does seem to be the... logical choice. He's the CMO. But he's a great actor if he's a part of all this, because his performance while he was here fooled me."

"And what about Arik, Jdehn, and Mehkai who have never been to Vulcan at all?" Kirk continued. "Who got a hold of them?"

Uhura heard computer controls being touched, she guessed by Spock as he spoke next. "Saavik does appear to be the harder target. I apologize, Captain, did you say something?"

"Only noting how much easier it is for you to–"

Uhura thought she saw Kirk glance her way.

"–say certain names."

She waited, but Spock only said after a pause, "Yes. To continue, Captain, Starfleet security does, as you noted, make it more difficult for the disease's perpetrators to reach her. I have cross checked the lieutenant's records with her visits to Vulcan. None occur before she became ill with the disease. The nearest visit happened three months before Saavik exhibited Phase I symptoms. I have also contacted Captain Hunter, requesting she research the possibility Lieutenant Saavik was – for lack of a better word – assaulted aboard the _Aefran_."

"I can imagine her reaction," Kirk said, "at the thought of her security being breached and her officer attacked. I know how I'd feel."

"She was not pleased. I must note I have found no motivation for Dr. Aakheltok being involved. While he may, as a Starfleet officer, hold the Romulans as enemies, he shows no personal prejudice or conflict with the Empire. And it is a statement of fact that he has no knowledge about Hellguard. It is a critical point, Captain. He _could_ have been given the disease to infect Saavik, after someone else with the right knowledge created it.

"And Mehkai and the other two?"

"Arik has had the most consistent medical personnel. Jdehn and Mehkai are more varied, often seeing a particular doctor or nurse only once as they moved from location to location. Mehkai, being an athlete, has more regular medical visits, even though the doctors change."

"Thorough as always, Mr. Spock."

"Of course, Captain. Why would I be otherwise?"

Uhura wanted to chuckle with Kirk.

More computer sounds, and then her captain said, "If it's the Romulans, then someone here has to be in contact with them. Can we discover how?"

Normally, that was Uhura's job to answer, but she just got here. But of course, Spock had already seen to it.

"Vulcan Command has allocated resources to investigate communications with the Romulans. Researching for such detail amongst a vast amount of data makes the search time consuming."

"Spock... could someone here be Romulan?"

Silence. Uhura caught Spock out of the corner of her eye as he steepled his fingers and touch them to his lips. "It is being investigated."

Kirk said, "Hmm," and then switched topics. "If it's not the Romulans –"

Uhura selected an automated beacon as a piggyback carrier to her program path.

"– we're looking for one of the hate groups. Even if they're not taking credit for all this. Yet."

"I have contacted the Federation's Biased Task Force. They compiled a list of all group members against Romulans, and I have started a cross check between the suspects on our list for contact on theirs."

"You know Bones contends that you and the rest of the _Symmetry _rescue team haven't been attacked. A Vulcan may not kill another Vulcan."

Uhura kept working, but she felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders tense at that suggestion.

"Captain, do you make an additional point with this rhetorical statement?"

"Does Vulcan have its own hate groups?"

"No."

"None?" Kirk protested. "Nobody banded together against the Romulans or the hybrids like Saavik?"

"Not in the manner you suggest, Captain. People may protest, but not banded in groups or seeking violence."

"But they _do_ protest, in some manner?"

"Yes. I have included such people in my search."

"What about the people on the _Symmetry_ team with you?"

"Sir?"

"Spock, what if it's members of the _Symmetry_ team doing this? You said they were reluctant to do what you suggested. They know better than anyone else what happened on Hellguard. They have a medical expert amongst them, someone who knows the hybrids intimately." Kirk paused for just a beat. "I noticed you don't have Healer Salok's name on your list."

Uhura's fingers stilled. The _Symmetry_ team? Through Spock's leadership, they rescued and gave a future to thirty-three abandoned children who otherwise would never have gotten a year older. And Ambassador Sarek cleared the way for her to come here, getting her everything she needed.

"No," Spock said, almost as an afterthought. "I did not. Captain, the _Symmetry_ team always intended bringing those survivors into the Federation. I did not force that decision."

"But you did force them to let the children claim themselves as Vulcans. To give them the opportunity to take the genetic scan and find their families. Maybe over the years, being forced to do that... built up resentment. Spock, I'm only saying it's something we have to investigate."

"I did not mean otherwise, Captain. If anything, I see my negligence in not thinking of this possibility in the beginning. Due to that negligence, I have now put the investigation in jeopardy."

"How so?"

"Healer Salok was allowed access to the accumulated records. That provided him the opportunity to hide any evidence of his guilt."

"If he's guilty. But that's a problem we face with anyone on the medical team. They've been in the records since before we arrived on Vulcan. Can you find out who has accessed those records and when?"

"Certainly. However, as we have both stated, all medical personnel have a legitimate reason for accessing those records. It will not bring us any closer to establishing guilt."

Kirk sighed. "Maybe not, but it can't hurt."

"I will also establish a security system to notify me – without the user's knowledge – of when those reports are accessed in the future."

"Good idea. We'd better get started with this list, see who we can eliminate. That's going to take a lot of questioning, and it won't get done by us sitting here."

"I have been able to eliminate–"

The comm station signaled, the one they had used to contact Miller. Kirk exchanged glances with Spock first, then darted over to Uhura. She knew they all thought the same thing: had Miller come through in the few hours since they last heard from him? She felt they hesitated to answer because they didn't want to find out they were wrong.

Kirk swung over to the station. It was the trader. Despite being relieved, Uhura couldn't believe he had gotten Archernar's information so fast. Or was Miller calling with bad news?

Kirk was saying the same thing, but Miller cut him off. "Got lucky. Fourth guy I talked to knew your Rommie. Gets the more hard-to-find things from him. Started asking me questions on what you're wanting. To maybe get you a better deal."

But Kirk deftly worked around that, and reminded Miller that part of what he was being paid for was his silence. The trader shrugged.

"Don't have anybody to tell. You wanna talk to a Rommie, what's it to me? Nothin'."

Kirk looked over his shoulder the second the comm line went dark. "Uhura."

She was about to answer when something blipped on her screen. She always put out watchdogs when she was working on something as sensitive as this. She had still called herself paranoid for doing it, but went ahead anyway. Now one of those watchdogs told her someone was trying to trace her activities. "I have a problem, Captain."

Kirk hurried over, leaning over her shoulder and reading her display as she explained the alert in the security measures she put in place. Spock stayed where he was, listening to what was said, and not interfering. It was illogical to lean over her other shoulder when she was the expert in her job and reported to the senior officer, albeit retired.

Kirk asked her, "Any idea who's trying to trace you?"

She did, but she didn't get a chance to answer. The comm station where Spock sat chimed again, bringing up Kirk's head and Uhura's. Spock raised an eyebrow. Miller again? Why?

But it wasn't the trader onscreen when Spock answered. A human male, in Starfleet uniform, sat in front of his comm pickup, aged anywhere from mid-sixties to seventies, the gray hard to see in his blonde hair. He was jowly with his skin red and tight from sunburn.

"This is Commodore Theodore Bass, commander of the Starfleet forces here on Vulcan."

Kirk was already back at the comm station when Bass finished his introduction, taking too much of an ego boost, in Uhura's opinion, in stressing his position. She spoke, careful not to add any significance to her own words.

"I'm receiving confirmation for your question, Captain Kirk."

Both he and Spock looked back at that, and as the Vulcan stared thoughtfully into space and Kirk returned to Bass, she saw they understood. The commodore had practically confirmed he had his people snooping after her.

"Kirk, what's going on down there?"

Bass must be in the Starfleet offices aboard the orbital station. Judging by his sunburn, he might be avoiding Vulcan itself for awhile. Uhura wondered what exactly made him curious enough to check on her. Had her admirer, Mason Bjain, said something? But the commodore answered that too.

"You keep saying it's got nothing to do with Starfleet, but every time I turn around I'm getting someone's new orders to meet you here on Vulcan. Now you got your communications expert with you, but when I check, I find out that her clearance isn't set up by the officer we send down. Vulcans are giving it to her. Sarek and Amanda of Vulcan are the ones briefing her, and when we check to see what's going on, we run into something as bad as a cloaking device around her station. What're you hiding?"

"Commodore," Kirk began. Uhura watched him keep himself contained. "Our mission here is specific to Vulcan through their High Council. Out of everyone assigned to the team, only four of us are with Starfleet. We're not here because we're fleet officers, but because of our past history with the mission details. I know Ambassador Sarek has spoken with Starfleet Command and the Federation Council to clear our being here. I'm sure if you spoke with him--"

"Don't drop names with me, Kirk. I don't care who you know on Vulcan."

But Uhura saw that was a lie.

"I can't do anything about you, Kirk, since you're retired. But the other three fell under my command when they got assigned here, and you hide what's going on when it's my business? Don't bother answering that now. I want those officers here in my office with a full report in the next thirty minutes." He signed off.

Kirk exploded. "Who does he think he is?"

Spock read from his computer, "Bass, Theodore Alfred. Current rank, commodore. Current assignment, commander of Starfleet forces, Vulcan."

"The question was rhetorical, but thank you, Mr. Spock. From the day they assigned a Starfleet unit here, I've never met any commanders who Starfleet wasn't burying on Vulcan because they were in trouble or marking time at a desk job until their retirement."

"According to his record, Commodore Bass will retire in two months, three days."

"And he's not going to do real work. He comes here where everything is so quiet and orderly, he just has to strut around in his uniform with all his braids on and get a grand sounding title to his record. The only reason he didn't demand that report now is he's using the thirty minutes to find out if he's insulted Sarek and the High Council by demanding anything." Kirk took a deep breath while Uhura hid a smile. "All right. Spock, you and I will go. I'm not interrupting what Bones and Uhura are doing to placate someone's inflated sense of brass. We can start investigating those names on the list right after we give this so called report. You said you eliminated some people?"

"Based on lack of motive, opportunity, or knowledge. Dr. McCoy, for example. He has the necessary knowledge, both medical and the conditions on Hellguard. However, I found no motive for his taking part in creating or applying the disease, or an opportunity for him to do so."

"He'll be relieved to hear that. Who else?"

"We have pinpointed knowledge of Hellguard as a key factor. However, in regards to some, such as the general physicians with hybrid patients, I am not aware if they have this knowledge or not. While _Criterion_ and the other ships being captured is generally known, not all details are. Of course, anyone might surmise, with the existence of Saavik and the others, what happened to the Vulcan captives."

Kirk snapped his fingers. "But they would never have enough facts to put into the disease! And if we're talking about each family physician infecting their own patient, someone has to be coordinating that effort. Each physician didn't come up with the same disease on by themselves. It's another way to eliminate people. Cross check if there's one or two people these physicians have in common, the people would be behind their effort."

They stood right next to Uhura's station so she didn't have to raise her voice.

"Gentlemen, I'm ready."

She fed Archernar's contact codes into her program, and sent the carefully prepared message. Her display changed to a geographic grid with a bright point leaving Vulcan with its path shown in yellow light. "I created this display using the path points I selected, along with the estimated times between each point. The actual carrier signal doesn't transmit its progress to me, of course. That would be counterproductive after all the precautions I've taken. In fact, it erases its trail and any sign that it existed at each point when it leaves."

The signal hit its fourth relay point when Kirk said, "Uhura, this is... amazing."

She knew what he was thinking. Overkill, paranoid. She remembered Bass having his people attempt breaking into her station.

"Yes, Captain," she said.

Nobody said anything more until the carrier signal crossed the Neutral Zone. From there, she knew, it was a straight line to Archernar, but she couldn't track the signal in the Romulan Empire. The silence stretched for a beat more.

"There it goes," Kirk said at last. "Now we wait."

It took hours before Archernar first got back to them. Uhura had volunteered to work on the data gathering, especially tracking communications between those on Kirk and Spock's list of suspects and any Romulans. The tedious work, so far, found nothing. Hearing from Archernar made her feel she accomplished something.

In his first contact -- made in full recorded audio and video, no less - a woman's body stood partially in the frame. An assistant or partner? Uhura wondered. Or something more personal? She ran his recording through the Universal Translator and started his message.

"I am always pleased to hear from such a beautiful woman as yourself." Archernar refrained from using names despite using her encryption system with his own modifications. The woman's hand dropped into the frame, resting possessively on his chest. "If I have information that is at all of any use to you, I'm happy to provide it. How may I help you, my lovely friend?"

The woman's hand pressed tighter on his chest, although the woman herself never stepped any more into view. Despite the serious situation they were in, Uhura laughed at these jealous antics, and guessed Archernar was enjoying himself just as much.

She sobered as she thought of some way to move their dialogue to the next level. This message from her must somehow mention Saavik, the disease, and finding the Hellguard records. Not to mention all data on the disease if it was created by the Empire, all worded so nobody else would know what she was talking about.

Uhura contacted him back, her recording made in audio only, just in case. She still wasn't ready to display her human features in a message opened within the Romulan Empire. She dropped her voice into a seductive purr. "I'm just as glad to hear from you, Archernar." Let The Hand hear that one! Who said work couldn't be fun?

But this _was_ work, serious work. "We have a mutual friend, a woman you once described as having beautiful, almost feline lines." That was close as she could think of getting to the meaning of Saavik's name: Little Cat. Uhura knew she violated something special by bandying that about, but her 'paranoia' extended to not including the name of a Starfleet officer, even if it was a Romulan name.

She could have done this without mentioning Saavik at all; she could have put this before Archernar as a simple deal of gathering covert information for a fee as the way to grab his interest. But she still believedthat bringing up Saavik, despite her protests to the contrary, gained Archernar's interest more than anything else.

And if she was wrong, Uhura still offered that fee to get his attention. And a fantastic challenge.

"Our friend is ill with a fatal disease that might have started on the colony world you and I visited the last time we saw each other. I need any records that exist for her colony. We theorize that someone may have used that information to create this disease. Either the colony leaders or someone they gave the information to. If you can find if has someone done that, accessed colony records to make this disease, we obviously need that information as well."

Archernar's next reply wasted no time on polite conversation and was only one line. "How ill is she?"

That woman previously around him was gone.

Uhura answered, "If it goes uncured, she will die in little over a year. That is why we need that information. We believe the cause and the cure lie on your end." She had almost said 'your people', but didn't want to sound outside of the Romulans. "Our mutual friend has--" she searched for the right word, "compatriots also ill, some already gone."

She was in bed, sound asleep, when the next message came in the middle of the night. She had forwarded her station controls to Sarek's and Amanda's home, setting an alarm to sound in her guest room if anything came from Archernar. She felt bleary, and only some of it cleared by the adrenaline sent pumping by the alarm. She was out her door and down the hallway towards the comm station in the main room. Despite the quiet she used at the time of the night, she heard other doors opening behind her, and by the time she was seated and answering the beeping signal, Kirk, Spock, Sarek, and Amanda ringed her back.

Archernar's reply was now a live, real time connection. Uhura was stunned. _Is he insane? If either of us gets caught…_ And then her sleepy brain thought, _What time is it out there anyway?_

The remaining sleepiness was burned away rapidly at the danger of being detected. _An alarm went off somewhere, and my name is going to be the talk of the Intelligence Division_. Just what she always wanted, Intelligence to know who she was.

After that thought was this one. Why did he go to all the trouble? This was getting irritating. Surely he knew these sorts of things were best done as briefly as possible. By now, she expected his price demands in one last message and no other contact until he sent the information, if he found it.

He made no preambles. "Is she there?"

Uhura blinked and leaned closer. "No. She is in the hospital, recuperating from the disease's second stage."

Something changed in Archernar's aristocratic features expression, Uhura couldn't say what, but she felt a sudden chill and wrapped her robe tighter around her.

"Tell her that if the information is to be found, I will find it."

"How good are your chances of doing that?"

"I have already started. I know a source--" He stopped, his lips thinning. Because he wanted to watch what he said over the open connection or because he wasn't going to reveal his inner network? "But I don't know if any files were kept intact. I _will_ get her something."

Uhura was getting irritated that despite the fact she was sitting right here, Archernar could only think in terms of Saavik.

_Oh well._ She brushed off the irritation. It was just lack of sleep. "I hate to drag the conversation to a vulgar level, but we haven't discussed price." She remembered only half of the items found on his ship years ago when Scotty and his team inventoried the contents, but as an example of the prices he could demand, they'd all be hocking the family heirlooms to pay his bill.

But he surprised her by making a dismissive gesture. "Tell my Little Ca-- tell Saavik she will only have to reimburse me for whatever… payments--" She understood he meant bribes. "I need to make. Plus, my source has spent a great deal of money to build... shall we say, a niche for herself."

Meaning someone built a bolt hole inside the myriad levels of the Empire. And was still hiding in it, the Empire was still interested in finding her. Archernar not only had to burrow through to her, she needed to somewhat surface. If he could make her decide it was worth it.

So he knew someone who knew about the half-Romulan hybrids, who might be bribed to tell it, but they would pay the cost for building her a new hiding spot, something good enough to render her invisible.

Archernar smiled suddenly, and Uhura wondered if he was about to offer them a Trojan Horse next. "My own fee is nothing. Tell her I remember my life debts."

She smiled, teasing. "I didn't know you were so charitable."

He sat back in his seat, thinking about it before a spark lit in his eyes. "You're right. I'm usually not."

"Meaning Saavik will owe you a favor."

"A very large one. I've often found it's just as rewarding to have a network of favors owed me as anything else. " His smile was devilish. "I look forward to collecting this one." His eyes darted off screen and narrowed. "I will be in contact with you shortly. But it becomes too dangerous to keep this connection open." He spared the last second to once more speak in his most compelling tones. The inviting rogue personality returned. "It's been my pleasure to see you again, Commander, as well as to enjoy that lovely voice."

She smiled back. "You don't fool anyone, you charmer. It's been good to see you too."

And he didn't fool her. He put that veneer over his Romulan talons, but she saw them nevertheless. And decided she didn't mind after all that he focused on Saavik.

He cut the connection.

And Uhura, having completed what she came her to do, no longer had duty pushing down any other thoughts. Plaguing thoughts buried since she first heard the Hellguard reports. Wonderings such as those Vulcan women, carrying hybrid children, and if they still believed in their culture's respect for all life. Or did they at least feel hate for the rape conceived child they carried? Did the Romulan women feel triumph at a baby's first movements or see it just as a component of a plan? Or worse, something reviled, a tumor they wanted to be rid of?

She didn't get back to sleep.


	14. Chapter 14

Pardek's recording ended, so Spock shutdown the message and sat back in his chair. The office assigned for his and Kirk's use was empty except for him.

Pardek...

When they had first needed a contact in the Romulan Empire, Kirk had suggested Pardek. After all, they knew the Romulan from the Khitomer Accords where he had made it plain how appalled he was at his ambassador's part in the conspiracy. In fact, over anyone who stood against peace. He had asked Spock to stay in contact, so he was an obvious choice to research any possible information on the disease.

But...

Valeris had been trusted. So had Cartwright, West, and Romulan Ambassador Nanclus. And knowing Pardek was too new a thing for Spock to decide if the Romulan was trustworthy. After all, what if the Empire knew nothing about the surviving hybrids? Or the disease responsible for eleven deaths already? If Pardek was as disreputable as Nanclus, Spock might bring Saavik and the others into more danger by informing the Empire they lived. And that someone had created a perfect weapon to use against them.

But the risk in not contacting Pardek was obvious: if the Romulan _was _trustworthy and the Empire was behind the disease, he condemned Saavik and the others to their deaths.

In the end, he and Kirk had decided to contact Miller, find someone else in the Empire if possible, and if not, reach out to Pardek. Archernar saved them from that.

_How ironic_. That when Spock at last placed his trust, he gave it to someone who had confessed to stealing from one of his own friends, and not to the Senator with his stated dedication to peace. To trust Archernar with so many lives... after all, the Romulan had revealed in his last message that he knew where to find someone directly involved with Hellguard. Almost as if he protected this person.

And yet, balanced against that was the Romulan's behavior on _Enterprise_ as he handed Spock a coin of purest Romulan gold as a gift and symbol to Saavik. The sincerity in that gesture, mirrored in his words that he did not forget his life debts...

So as Spock thought about Pardek's message, arriving, in another bit of irony, only hours after Archernar reached Uhura, he stood by the same words he gave Archernar years ago: "I take you at your word -- against my better judgment." Someday, Spock thought, Pardek might prove trustworthy of bringing about peace, once he had more time to know the Romulan.

He glanced up to the newly installed computer screens encompassing the office walls. Each one of the four displayed a group of suspects, including the information that might clear or condemn them. The one to Spock's right was for Vulcan's general practioners with Romulan hybrid patients. Spock touched the controls on his station, and his latest research updated the list on the screen. Most of the physicians and nurses cleared off the list.

_They do not know enough details concerning Hellguard, and they never met hybrids other than their one or two patients. Nor can I find any instance of they're displaying hardcore enmity against the Romulan hybrids. _

_A few physicians did lose family on Hellguard, but I can find no evidence of contact with the hybrids or those who could reach them._

And he didn't find any evidence of a conspiracy ring made up of any physicians or any ties to a Federation hate group.

His eyes flicked to the large screen in front of him, displaying the research on the medical team fighting the disease.

_Healer Srre. Srre has all the criteria -- medical knowledge, information on Hellguard, displaying antagonism against his half-brother over their father's rape and death. All criteria except he has never treated any hybrids prior to the phase. He saw none of them until the majority fell to Phase III. His meeting with his brother did not even occur until days before Mal'Shik died. Before that, during the creation and dispersal of the disease, Srre was at Gol._

Tu'ong lost a cousin to Hellguard and the Romulans, but none of the hybrid survivors who took the genetic scan traced back to her family. Not to mention, she never displayed malice towards any of them, and, like Srre, never met Saavik or any of the other hybrids until Sorel asked her to join his medical team.

Sa'd was on record as a physician for plenty of the hybrids, but also never displayed any animosity towards them, or knew anything but cursory details until he also joined Sorel's staff.

And so the list went on, each member cleared of suspicion. Corrigan and Sorel, as well as all the others, didn't have even one strike against them.

_The _Symmetry _rescue team is equally exonerated_. The only people not cleared were the Romulans. But how did they get to their victims? Covert agents from the Empire? Or accomplices within the Federation? No one on Spock's very long list of suspects had Romulan ties.

_Where else must I look for information?_ He was making rapid progress, dwindling down his long list with irrefutable facts that cleared innocent names. It was an entire success except for...

His mind naturally drifted from this thought to the screen on his left. It featured anyone who possibly infected Saavik aboard the _Aerfen_. The screen was blank.

Uhura worked with Captain Hunter and her crew for possible leads, and everyone onboard the ship was cleared. Dannan Stuart spearheaded the investigation into who came from the outside, either when the ship was at port or when someone came aboard. Investigating anyone in all those ports was a daunting task. Especially if it was a Romulan agent who would know how to stay under cover.

And that didn't include all the possibilities for Jdehn, Mekhai, and Arik.

A file updated on his station: medical's latest report on Mekhai, Arik, and Jdehn. Each of them left Phase II late last night. Since they didn't practice Vulcan disciplines, they didn't need extra time to regain them. But reading between the lines, _as McCoy would say, _they were still raw, swelled with last vestiges of the fever. Especially Mekhai since, like Saavik, hadn't expelled the energy through combat or sex, but, unlike her, he hadn't had even the small relief from assisted meditation.

Spock called up another record, and read it over again. Saavik was being released later today, after some final tests.

He never had the chance to discuss what she did for him with Valeris.

His station chimed with an incoming message. Amanda was seated in her office, judging by the furniture. Behind her, he glimpsed the large windows that wrapped around her corner office on the other side of the Linguistics complex, away from the worst heat from Vulcan's sun.

"Spock, I just read your request. I'm not sure I understand. You suspect some of the Diplomatic Corps have been meeting against Saavik and the others?"

"Not quite, Mother. I am researching if prejudicial groups exist on Vulcan in the form they take in other parts of the Federation. Specifically in planning violence such as the destruction through this disease. With your and Father's work, you are more likely to have heard if this has ever taken place."

She made a disgusted noise. "Your father is more likely to know about such things. He's been more of a target than I have."

"Sarek?"

"Yes, Spock. After all, he and the others from the _Symmetry_ -- well, excluding you -- brought all the children here who looked up their families. He was one of the ones who insisted the families take them in -- as they would any relative."

Because Spock had forced the _Symmetry_ team's hand. And then left for a year on Dantria IV followed by all those years on _Enterprise_. For the first time, he saw he had left Sarek and the others to bear the brunt of their people's reaction.

His mother was watching him. "You never thought about it, did you?"

"No, I admit I did not. Was it very difficult?"

"Of course. _I_ wouldn't want to be the one to deliver the news of over five hundred rape cases, and then tell the lucky twenty-nine families about the children."

He never expected that answer from his mother. She must have seen that.

"All right, _I_ admit I became high and mighty with Sarek about people's reactions. I said the children should have been sent somewhere else, like Earth, where they would have been treated better. That's when I dug out of him your threat about what you would do if they took the children anywhere besides Vulcan. I still thought emotional species were better capable of handling the children than here."

He raised an eyebrow. "Mother, I extensively researched--" Frown lines appeared around her eyes. "I see. You did similar research. It is why you withdrew your arguments against Sarek."

"Even _Earth_ disappointed me! I won't even go into what the Tellarites and the Andorians do to children of rape. So much for calling ourselves civilized."

Her disappointment was bitter, but she drew in a long breath and went on. "I'm sorry, Spock. You asked if any Vulcans organized against the Romulan hybrids. Well, the whole issue certainly drew a lot of argument. That went on for a long time, but I don't remember anything like that happening recently."

"How long is recently, Mother?"

"I'd say ten years or more. Nothing big, anyway. I don't know if I can rule out small groups keeping themselves private." She frowned again, and he knew she thought of the full implications of those groups existing. "Sarek is still a better source. Let me talk to him."

Spock went back to examining his findings. He had researched these same theories a number of different ways, but he started the searches again. _Small groups, meeting in private.._. How did he search for something so hidden? And yet, he knew it _could_ be found, given time and by discovering the key, just one fact, to unraveling the secrecy. Kirk was out doing his own investigations into this same thing, gathering all the information he could to pass to Spock. If they could find any evidence on how to track down these groups or find out if they even existed...

The computer signaled another incoming transmission, recorded the way Pardek's was: the _Aerfen_ with their investigation results so far. No hardcore suspects so far, just possibilities that they passed along as he requested. The list of names meant nothing to him, but that was no surprise. He started a cross-check for any associations with his list, but found nothing.

Wherever the killer or killers hid themselves, they did it out of the medical community. _However, some tie_...

Or was it the other way around? Did someone create the disease first and then pass it to someone else, not a physician, but expert at working covertly? Disseminating the disease through some common means Spock hadn't even considered?

He worked the most basic facts over in his mind again, like one of his mathematical formulas. _Hellguard and its details -- converted to a disease -- aimed as revenge -- spread through Vulcan first, then Saavik, then Jdehn and the other two --_

Hellguard. It was the starting point, the pivot and crux to the whole situation. _We must have that information from Archernar_.

The computer signaled again, this time telling him that _Aerfen_ had sent something else, something Amanda claimed from the Starfleet cargo master. He didn't have access to see its manifest, and Amanda didn't answer his attempts to reach her.

Curiosity was the first reason why he wanted to go to her office, but the more he thought about it, the more he decided not to wait for her to contact him. If the _Aerfen_ found something to help his investigation, waiting was illogical. Taking a tricorder so he could check his research when it finished compiling, Spock left for the Linguistics building.

Amanda's senior aide, a middle-aged, tawny furred Caitian female, was not at her desk in the outer room. He heard a loud bang and his mother's voice, strained, and then Uhura yelled. He rushed inside.

Amanda bent over a large container, nearly big enough to hold her desk. It was falling off a cargo sled, the light catching the strain pulling her face tight over her delicate bones. Uhura grabbed at the box from the other side, putting her weight behind it, so it didn't crash further into the older woman. Spock wasted no time, but sped over and grabbed the containers' handles, taking the weight off of Amanda, and slowly pulling the crate to the floor.

"Mother."

She fought to regain her breath. "I know what you're thinking, but I wasn't trying to lift it! I was opening it, and the cargo sled isn't working right and kept banging into my legs. I tried to steady it, and the next thing I knew, the container was falling on me. I couldn't get out of the way in time."

He thought of all the time it took him to reach her office. "I tried to contact you. Were you caught under the container since then?"

"Was that you? I was hoping whoever it was would check why I didn't answer. Or that Pr'rearrm would get back to her desk. No, it just got in my way when you first called and I couldn't get around it fast enough. It was the next time that it started slipping."

He reached across her desk. "I am calling for a healer."

"No, Spock, I'm all right! Nyota heard me shouting and helped. Don't worry, and don't call any doctors. I don't need them if this sled will behave."

He leaned down to check the sled while she went on. "You showed up at a good time, Spock. I mean besides rescuing me. Help me unpack this -- wait, are you needed somewhere else? Help me unpack the main container and then I won't hold you up any longer. I've already pressed Nyota into service, so I shouldn't keep you too. She's going to help me check everything that's packed in this beast to make sure nothing's damaged."

With the danger over, he took the whole conversation as an amusing reminder of who was the parent and who the child. He checked the container's latches. They were on the sides; good, that made the exercise much more efficient.

"Mr. Spock," Uhura said, "If you need me for something else right now, sir." She let it dangle unfinished as a question.

"No, Commander, other than to ensure my mother attempts no more bodily injuries to herself in unpacking her container."

Amanda scoffed in maternal disgust. "Your sense of humor was always as appalling as your father's, Spock. And it is not my container. It's Saavik's things from the _Aerfen_. I know she'll be dismissed from the hospital in a little while, but I want to make sure everything arrived safely."

The latches sprang open under his fingers with loud snaps. _Saavik's belongings..._

Amanda hovered, waiting for him. "Of course, Captain Hunter and the others would be careful in packing everything, but it doesn't hurt to check."

The container bore nicks and scratches from being banged around, but with the sunlight pouring in, Spock saw the majority of the marks were old. Still... He pulled off a side panel and examined the padded packing material. The container was divided into two sections: on the left, making up the rear of the box, was a filled slot, not very wide but taking up the entire length of the big crate. Spock pulled it out and saw the padding held a slim case. He opened it and raised an eyebrow. Weapons, each held securely in more packing material, cut to fit perfectly. He lifted out a dagger.

"Here, Spock," Amanda said, "give me the box. I'll check them. Are you sure I'm not tying you up? If you could just get the trunk out ..." She took the weapons container from his hands, and looked it over with no shock or surprise. "She told me she was starting a collection."

She walked to a couple of well cushioned, russet chairs tucked in the corner on the opposite side of the room. Spock tore his eyes away and put them back inside the big container. He assured Amanda he could stay for a while longer, especially if he could use her computer station.

His mother said a trunk? With its padding, it filled up the crate from the front to the back, minus the slim distance for the small weapons collection. He stripped off the padding and stared with real appreciation.

The chest was carved, thin stone fused to a metal frame. He recognized the unique handiwork of an elderly artisan and thought the trunk was as much a work of art as anything else T'Gav made. Nomad Vulcans, riding the now extinct _vlaittlya_ with loyal sehlats at their sides, emblazoned the front panel. They traveled off to the right side where they became the first Vulcan settlements followed by the rise of the great Houses on the back. Warriors marched off to the final panel on Spock's left, fighting bitterly while some reached up, climbing a mountain side to reach the trunk's lid. Here they lined up, weapons falling from their hands, as they followed their leader, the Vulcan male at the head of their line: Surak, hand stretching out to touch the large IDIC. If Spock allowed for such a thing as envy, he would envy Saavik for having this.

Uhura said to Amanda, "That's beautiful! Where did Saavik find it?"

The two women sat across from each other in the russet chairs, typical of the office furniture. The space was luxurious without sacrificing comfort. Awards and certificates of achievement hung on a wall near a large, thoroughly stocked bookshelf of both computer chits and actual paper antiques. Holographs of family and friends filled the end table standing between the two women.

Amanda asked Spock to put the trunk on the floor near her, and then answered Uhura's question. "It was a gift for -- well, the short answer is community service. In the way Vulcans view community service. The long answer is, unfortunately, a history lesson. Surak believed people should contribute to the community, to fulfill its needs. So everyone here must contribute a percentage of their time to community service. And the more affluent you are, the more time you owe. I'm sure it was Surak's way of telling the most powerful Houses they could keep what they had, but they must pay back the planet that gave it to them. Now, for Sarek and I, our work in the diplomatic corps repays a lot of our yearly community duty, but we usually owe a little more." She smiled. "And we get to claim someone who lives in the house over a certain period of time. So I claimed Saavik when she was staying with us years ago. T'Gav put in to the community for help while she recovered from surgery, I spoke to Saavik about it, and she took the duty." Amanda ran her hand over the exquisite carvings on the lid. "T'Gav made the trunk as a gift. She said Saavik deserved it for going beyond the work she was told to do. Spock, I made that report for you. It's on my desk."

He uploaded the file into his tricorder, but his focus stayed rooted on her as she opened the chest and began removing things. The Saavik he once knew didn't collect belongings. When had she started?

He picked up his mother's report and made notes into his own research of those Vulcans who had been most against the hybrids claiming their families. He imagined Sarek's displeasure that any Vulcan might be involved in anything like a prejudiced hate group. If some Vulcans lost their logic so badly... they had to be found. He started the long cross-checks that might connect these new names with the opportunity to act against Saavik and the others, and sent this same list to Kirk's attention.

He glanced up in time to see Amanda open a small cloth bag cinched closed at the top. Archernar's gold coin fel into her palm. She rubbed it with a soft cloth, wiping away the oils from her hands until its already bright surface gleamed. Spock remembered again how the Romulan looked and sounded as he held the coin to the light, murmuring, "Romulan gold. None finer in the galaxy. Give her this for me someday, to remind her of her worth." To which Spock had responded: "And someday perhaps she will appreciate it."

Had she? Is that why she kept it so carefully? Or was she protecting it for the day she would believe its message? The way Spock appreciated Archernar saying he helped them now despite his parting words years ago: "As the humans say, friend Spock, you owe me. And unlike Vulcans, I call in my debts."

Spock noted Archernar was putting Saavik above that.

Uhura whispered, "Oh, how lovely!"

Spock blinked. Amanda was unraveling a statue about a meter high, and judging by how his mother held it, solid stone.

"Thank you," Amanda said. "I gave it to her. I was... getting her interested in its symbolism. It's a figure from Pre-Reform myths."

Spock recognized it instantly. _The San Synastraka_, he thought just as his mother said it out loud.

"The best way to translate it would be The Twilight Eagle." She stroked the stone bird's throat and chest colored a dusty rose. "You see how its bottom is supposedly lit by a sunset. Its head and back are colored by the sky getting dark, including some of the light from the neighboring planet."

"T'Kuht," Uhura said.

Spock stopped to listen. Odd how he never thought the myth in connection with Saavik. But then, it never was one of his favorites.

"This is another story I'll try to shorten," Amanda said, warming to the explanation. "The myth says a species of bird split into two groups after falling out over hunting grounds. They evolved into the janjon and the synastraka. Let's say the owl and the eagle. Just like on Earth, the janjon, or owl, became nocturnal and is a symbol of wisdom. The eagle, of course, dominated the day. They avoided each other, and when they did meet, it was... bitter. And then, one owl and one eagle did meet, for a much better reason than fighting, and they had a child."

Spock looked at the statue, noticing the wider, more forward seated eyes of a janjon, the owl in Amanda's translation, in a head shaped like a synastraka, Amanda's eagle.

"The parents were killed by their people, leaving their orphan behind to make its way. Neither owl or eagle, but also both, flying at the time that's neither day or night, but a mixture."

"Twilight," Uhura said.

_And_, Spock always suspected, _the dawn_. Amanda sat the statue on the table, and the sunlight caught its colors, the blue black on the top carved feathers, a streak of silver blue from T'Kuht's growing light, and the rose on the belly. The hybrid bird's wings spread out for flight, its talons pushing off from its base of carved mountain rocks.

_Very beautiful_, he thought.

"I tried to get Spock interested in the myth when he was little." Amanda glanced over her shoulder. "It never worked."

He took the opportunity to walk over. "The symbolism fails in my case." He raised an eyebrow. "Humans and Vulcans are not descended from the same ancestor."

"So you said."

"I could also point out the fallacies of attaching the myth to the survivors of Hellguard."

"Spoilsport. Ruining my story with facts."

She held out the heavy statue and he placed it back in it's protective wrappings. He reached into the trunk and lifted out a piece of clothing. He let it unfold from his hands to the floor, his fingers brushing the rich fabric of black and white. Saavik's gown that she wore at the ShiKahr ceremony for the Federation President. He had looked up when they had announced her, and like seeing all her belongings, the sight of her had struck against the memory he had of her.

Saavik of Vulcan they called her. It meant she had gotten citizenship. She had glided in the door with the grace of a fawn, unknowingly turning a few heads when she came in, stylishly gowned and a new air about her that Uhura now commented on to Amanda.

"I always like seeing someone learn their own appeal. It's amazing the change it makes in them."

How different she had looked: mature, a new line of nobility, the beginning of regal elegance. Her head held with dignity and her bearing rivaling the most stately Vulcans there.

He glanced back to the holographs next to his mother, and found the one that earlier caught his eyes: Amanda and Saavik at the reception. Amanda was smiling, her hand hovering over the younger woman's shoulder, clearly proud while Saavik looked out as if suspicious of the photographer's motives. Amanda had moved the orbit of people around her, at times introducing Saavik, easing her into a world as foreign to her as any alien planet she had stepped on.

Amanda's mouth quirked in response to Uhura's comment. "So do I, except that hasn't quite happened here. Saavik thinks it's the dress. You should have seen her when I picked her up from the couture. They knew what they had on their hands with her, but she was still clueless." She shook her head. "One of these days, I'm really going to have to push some real world sense into that magnificent head. Although maybe it's better if I don't. In its way, it's charming."

Spock carefully repacked the gown.

"And teaching her to dance?" Uhura asked. She was smiling back at Amanda.

Vulcans didn't dance, not in the way humans meant it. It was an art form and an important part of many ceremonies, but not a casual pastime. Perhaps it was the ceremonial aspect that made some presidential aide think it was all right to ask Saavik... to the President's favorite waltz. He saw the debate go on in her mind to reject the unwanted advance or avoid a possible diplomatic incident.

"_Spock!" _Amanda had hissed, propelling him to intercede while she and Sarek distracted any older Vulcans who might disapprove. He had searched for Kirk or McCoy, better equipped, in his opinion, for such a thing as this, but they were too far away. Without wasting any more time, he swept in between Saavik and her misguided suitor, politely saying she was otherwise engaged. He led them out of the dance as soon as possible, apologizing to her for the whole situation...

And remembering how he shared the rhythmic movements of the waltz with her.

"Oh, that," Amanda said. "I just wanted to take some of the military stiffness out of her bearing. No offense to the Starfleet Academy."

"None taken," Uhura said. "I agree with you. It's a shame how--"

Their conversation filled the background as Spock discovered a small keepsake box made of rich, red wood inside the trunk. Opening it to see if anything was damaged, he found a printed letter, something unusual in this computer age. Curious. What was so important that she took the trouble to print it out on paper and then preserve it with sealant against any damage? Perhaps her citizenship? He opened it to scan the first line; the first line was so unbelievable, he read the whole thing. His letter to her -- this was the letter Valeris had sent to Saavik supposedly from him. The contents sent him racing for the door.

"Spock?" his mother called.

He spared only a few words over his shoulder as he left for the Academy Hospital.

He found Saavik in her hospital room, sitting cross-legged on the bed. She wore a short sleeved, red and white tunic over soft gray pants, and was barefoot. Something about her bare feet tweaked at his memory, but he couldn't grasp it. He could and did take in the sight of her, even as he realized he had no idea how to begin. Finally, he had to say something because she had looked up from what she was reading when he came into the room and now stared at him.

After faltering in silence, he managed to say, "Your healers report you are leaving Phase II. However, if my presence disturbs you--"

Distant, she replied politely as if merely to an acquaintance. "You do not 'disturb' me. My healers are quite correct. I am merely tired."

He was uncomfortable. A wall still existed between them, made up of everything that had happened. He expected it to be there, but he needed it gone if he was to discuss what brought him here.

Suddenly realizing she addressed a superior officer, she darted to her feet and stood at attention. That was as uncomfortable as the wall between them, and he waved it away. Still, she slipped on shoes before sitting down again.

Saavik watched him as he crossed to the chair in front of her bed and placed the letter on the small table next to it. She showed no reaction to any of this. "May I ask your purpose in coming here?"

Not knowing the words, Spock's fingers moved on the paper. "Your personal belongings arrived from the _Aerfen_."

She nodded, saying nothing. Not knowing what else to do, he held the paper up wordlessly, letting the action ask his question for him. Only she answered with her own question. "You went through my belongings?"

He nodded and sat. "Amanda thought it best. She wanted to ensure your possessions arrived safely."

Some of the barrier around Saavik melted. "That is kind of her." Her eyes returned to the paper in his hand. "And you read it?"

"I-- yes." The startling contents inside had made him forget the violation of her privacy. "You went to a great deal of trouble to have this on paper. I was curious as to what was so important. That reason does not excuse my behavior. I apologize."

"I should not have made an accusation for such a minor point. I apologize as well." She glanced at him surreptitiously, and for the first time, spoke without formality. "You didn't save my supposed letter to you?"

He looked away, folding his hands in front of him. But he was asking her personal questions; he couldn't be unfair and not answer hers. "I... removed everything I had of you."

Turned away, he did not see her slump against the wall behind her bed with her eyes squeezed shut. By the time he dared look over, she was once more controlled and formal. "Your action was logical. The past is the past. In fact, I did much the same with what I had of you with the exception of that paper. The rest amounted to our letters. I would have returned your old tricorder, in the event you wanted it, but it was lost on the _Grissom_."

He tried to remember why destroying what he had of her had seemed logical. Valeris had originally suggested it, but Kirk had agreed with the idea, telling Spock he didn't need the reminders. "I was much the same as you. I only had our letters and a message you once wrote." _Spock nogo. My name is Saavik_.

He touched the paper again, knowing the movement would bring her attention to it. "And this?"

"I preserved it for the same reason you have your Chagall painting. To remind me that nothing lasts forever."

He had no words for a reply for a long minute. In the end, he couldn't answer that statement. He asked instead the most important question in his mind since he had read that letter. "Is it true?"

Softly, "What it refers to?"

"Yes."

A pause. "Yes, it's true."

"Why didn't you tell me? About you and I... and Genesis..."

"First, because you did not remember me at all. Later, you had no memory of Genesis, and I had no wish to disturb you."

"You would not 'disturb' me."

She reacted to her own words, but then, "No? Are you so sure? You cannot even say the words."

"Do I need to say them? Would they have made you discuss this with me years ago?"

"No, I do not need the words. Spock..."

"Perhaps you cannot say them either."

"It is difficult to find the right words. Spock, I did not think you would want to know. My telling you served no purpose and might... create the exact barrier we experience now."

The sight of her struggle, so much like his own, bridged the wall between them. She was ill equipped to discuss this as he was. But somehow, that leveled things enough so he could face her now.

"I wish I had known, for many reasons. Not the least is, I... do... have some memory of Genesis."

She suddenly leaned forward. "You do?"

"Yes, they are incomplete, hazy, but I have them and I did not understand why I had such images of..." He stopped, and then spoke again, as softly as she had. "It was a cave."

"Yes." He had no word for the light now in her eyes.

"And a storm?"

"Yes."

"My world became chaotic and painful. You came to me, soothed all of that way, and then..." He fought to say more, cross the chasm between them with half-formed memories. But she was right; he was always terrible at this.

"Yes. And then."

She was leaving it be, but he didn't want to. He wanted her to force the issue.

She spoke to herself. "I knew your short and long term memory were functioning. But I thought the memories were destroyed at the fal tor pan." Before he could ask, she said to him, "Did you not ever wonder why you had such memories? As hazy as they are? Surely you realized the biological implications of your maturing."

"I remembered and was told of how violent the maturation was, coinciding with Genesis' own disruption. I thought the violence ended the pon farr--" He stopped to raise an eyebrow, pointing out he could say the words, "--cycle as it did in my combat with Captain Kirk during my failed ceremony with T'Pring."

Her eyebrows shot together. "Let us not discuss T'Pring. You already know my thoughts on her."

"Vividly." And he raised his eyebrow higher.

She leaned against a raised knee. "The violent maturation did end the later other cycles. The cycles themselves were so rapid, if the Genesis destruction hadn't ended them, you would have died. Your features aged in seconds before my eyes, and I could do nothing to help you then. At one point, you--" Her head dropped and she swallowed.

He waited, but she didn't continue. "At one point, I?"

She raised her head. These last days of Phase II had taken their toll. Exhaustion was showing around her eyes and mouth, and in her eyes themselves, a deep strain weighed her down. "The details are unnecessary."

She was hiding something and he didn't know why. He thought the details _very_ necessary. A part of his life that he thought was a dream was a sudden reality. She was the only one who knew it and could give it back to him. Why continue hiding it? Unless...

The so evident strain caused by the faux pon farr cycle she had just endured... The cycle may not be the real thing, but it was extremely close. Perhaps the talk and his proximity were beginning to disturb her. Was that why she watched him so carefully?

He got to his feet, burying his wanting to stay. He imagined he saw it reflected in her expression. "As you say, the details are unnecessary. I do not need them to know my debt to y--"

"You owe me no debt. It is I who owe--"

He could interrupt as well as she could. "The moment of our first meeting, you saved my life. You did so again, more than once, and now there is Genesis."

She wasn't looking at him and the tension somehow came back between them. Why? What wasn't he seeing?

"As you wish," she said. "The past is the past."

A moment ago, their talk held such promise of a renewal between them. He didn't know how he lost it. He turned to go, but stopped at the door. Over his shoulder, he spoke carefully, "Perhaps that is not true. You did face Valeris. For my sake."

Silence. It lasted for so long, he took his first step out when he heard her. "Confronting Valeris was an action I needed to do. I should have done so earlier, when I first saw the problem she was."

He spun back to her, but she saw his objection and answered it before he spoke it. "No, I did not see her betrayal or the low depths of which she was capable. If I had, I never would have believed that supposed message from you. At least, I might have questioned it." The pain from the letter, the one back in his hand, haunted the back of her eyes and she turned her face from him again. Once more, she spoke before he could. "I did see, however, that she was not the person I first thought and I unwisely let it go. The other night when I faced her was long overdue."

"So you will not allow me to thank you for this as well?"

He saw her struggle. "One does not thank logic."

"Yes... of course. So I have heard." Perhaps it was better she wasn't looking at him. He wasn't sure he could face her with his next words. "Do you want to know the content of your letter to me?"

Her eyes swung sharply up to meet his and he had no choice but to see the ravaged expression in them. "I do not want to know what I could possibly have said to make you destroy everything you had of me. I already know what it took for me to do the same."

Sharp pain stabbed him unmercifully, the pain in what she said and the memory of receiving that letter. All the days that followed it where the empty place once filled by her grieved for the open wound. Until Valeris came to him, quietly easing away the memories, giving him acceptance, loyalty, asking what she could do to help.

"Did you..." He turned to face her for this next question. "Did you honestly believe I would reject you for this? I would not."

"And yet, you believed I would reject you for any reason. I would not."

"Saavik." Of all the words he knew, in all the different languages, he didn't know what ones to say now.

He stayed quiet too long. Saavik's expression closed off as if he had said his goodbye. She surprised him by holding out a hand. "Spock?"

He must have looked confused because she reached out a bit further with her hand. "The letter?" she asked.

He saw now that she was pointing to the paper he had brought with him. Still confused, he gave it to her. "What will you do with it?"

"Return it to its box," she said simply.

"Return it?" He blinked. "Why?"

"It is still my reminder. All things end."

He was stunned again into silence, and had no chance for recovery. A petite figure glided through the door: T'Ahiyya, the nurse. She glanced back and forth between patient and visitor before settling on the latter. "Spock, you were allowed five minutes for your visit. You have far exceeded that allotment. I need to see Saavik. Alone." And without further word or by touching him, she masterfully whisked him from the room.

He stood in the hall, Saavik's last words echoing. _All things end._ Like her life in approximately fifteen months.

That did not mean he couldn't try to delay the ending. And the past did not have to stay in the past.

Across the way, Jdehn leaned in her doorway. When she saw him notice her, she grinned sardonically. "Sorry, I didn't catch that."

He realized he had spoken something of his thoughts out loud." Are you well?" he asked with sincere concern.

The sarcasm left her smile. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just waiting for another barrage of tests. Tests, tests, and more tests. I don't know what they hope to find different. What's this list you want?"

He explained the message he had sent, requesting a list of names of anyone who might have infected her, but his mind stayed elsewhere.

"But I can't even remember _every_body I ever met in the past few years!"

"You must. Remember, whoever is responsible could have passed the disease through injection, inhalation, or ingestation."

"Oh, brilliant! This is impossible! If it wasn't you doing the asking, I'd tell them what they could do with their list."

"I would think you would oblige anyone who was trying to save your life."

He lifted an eyebrow, waited, and was rewarded by Jdehn's laugh. "Furthermore, we are speaking of someone who would know of your past or is associated with a group that is anti-Romulan."

She snorted. "Hell, I'm on that list."

Another voice sounded behind him: tall, slim Arik, his arms bearing his weight on the door frame, back in his own room with his and Jdehn's Phase II cycle ended. "Is Saavik awake?"

Jdehn teased him, but Spock caught the note of underlying tenderness. "Saavik's the nurse's first victim. You can talk to her later."

Spock cocked an eyebrow at Arik. "Is there some way I may help?"

Arik shook his head. "Private." Those restless eyes suddenly shifted down the hall to the approaching Tu'ong and then sharply on Spock. "You leave soon."

_Leave? When I have finally--_ Spock looked back at Saavik's door. _All things end_. His back suddenly straightened, and, with determination, pushed the weight off his shoulders. _So they do. But at times, I can choose the ending and I reject this one_. The only thing remaining of their past was themselves, and what they made of the present. That he would keep.

"No, Arik. I plan to stay and help if I can."

"Good." Arik's eyes stayed on Spock even as he gave himself over to the next batch of tests.

"Healer Tu'ong," Spock said, interrupting the genetics doctor from her patient. "May I use your office?" With her approval, he went to her nearby rooms and sent a communications to Starfleet Command requesting that he and Dr. Leonard McCoy be allowed to stay on Vulcan. He hesitated after his albeit limited description of the emergency here, but no more could be said. They were _needed_ here. He added only one more line, in case his word wasn't enough. If Starfleet Command needed further confirmation for this request, he wrote, T'Pau of Vulcan was willing to speak on their behalf.

The confirmation came more quickly than he expected. He and McCoy were assigned to Vulcan as long as they were needed. It went without saying, the retired Kirk would stay with them.

A face darted a glance to make sure Spock was occupied at the computer. He listened while the request for more time was made to Starfleet. His back muscles eased when no words were made about his identity.

So close! When Spock had passed him in the corridor, looking right at him, he thought he had been discovered. Almost trapped! But no, the Vulcan didn't penetrate the disguise -- no one could -- and had moved off for Tu'ong's office.

_Misguided Spock... good intentions but placed on the wrong cause._

Nurses were in with Saavik, but they would clear soon. Meanwhile, Jdehn and Arik were available, paying no attention to anything but their conversation. Then Mekhai, Saavik, and somehow, the Phase III patients and the stasis units.


	15. Chapter 15

The red marble monolith felt cool against Arik's forehead, so it soothed despite its hardness. Above him, powered candles flickered in their unique, dark metal fixtures that formed a latticework ceiling against the natural one of Vulcan's red sky. The architects designed them so one candle flame, real or mirrored on the stone walls, burned for each Vulcan lost on Hellguard.

All those ghostly flickering candles... so many lives. If he opened his eyes, he'd be staring into the face of one such Vulcan.

He didn't open them. Until he heard Spock.

"Arik?"

The young Vulcan/Romulan jumped and started mumbling an apology. Something in the quiet way Spock watched him made the "I'm sorry" fade away unspoken.

Behind Spock, that one human -- Kirk -- took in the aisle of red marble walls stretched ahead of them, forming a corridor that laid open at either end. Three other aisles with flickering candles stood on the other side of this one, one aisle for each lost ship: the _Criterion_, the _Perceptor_, the _Constant_, and this one for the _Diversity_.

_They let an outsider see this_? Arik couldn't stop that thought. He didn't want a human to see this memorial, he didn't want _anyone_ who wasn't part of the pain to be here gaping at their open wounds. It was _private_, it was _personal_, and no one should be allowed to gawk at their heartache like it was a tourist attraction.

He opened his mouth to tell Kirk to go away. "One of these people is my parent."

He blinked. Had he really said that?

Kirk's head jerked in his direction, and Arik said more without thinking. "I'm not old enough to be from one of the other ships. My mother served on the _Diversity._ Or my father did. I don't know which one was Vulcan."

He flung out an arm and his fingers splayed to point out as many etched faces in the marble as he could. "But either way, it's one of them!"

The face of every crewmember from the _Diversity _gazed out from where they were carved, the candle flame marking an eerie life on the engraved expressions, warming the cold stone. Reports forged in the marble, as well as actual embedded computer screens, showed the Vulcan crew alive and presenting their findings and logs. The sound from the screens was silenced and the reports subtitled, with touch pads for those who were blind. The quiet remained unbroken.

All the crew had accomplished was here: new planets and new lifeforms discovered, scientific experiments, simple day to day space exploration. Everything of a lost people: names, faces, and achievements stretching up the pathway in a memorial of red stone and light.

Arik's eyes no longer met those etched faces or the ones on the screens. What if he looked into one of them and saw his own?

He heard the slight sound of footsteps and Kirk's boots came into view of his lowered eyes. "I'm sorry," the human said. "I'll wait at the entrance."

Such kindness. Sickened, Arik listened to the understanding in those words, hearing what was left unsaid: _No, I don't know what this is like for you_.

It was more respect than he had given Kirk.

He felt worse when the human talked to Spock about meeting at the memorial's main entrance. Arik waited for a reprimand, and when it didn't come, told himself to stop being such a coward and at least face the other male.

He didn't get his eyes completely up. More like glanced from the top of them.

_Coward_.

But Spock stood as quietly as before, just... waiting. As if Arik had called him here to listen to whatever words spewed out. Even the ones that insulted his friend.

Arik turned away and put his hand next to a name. "Sir," he asked Spock, "could you read this for me?"

Spock's eyebrow shot up, but he said nothing and walked the couple steps to the wall. Arik stared hard as the Vulcan interpreted the writing, like he hoped Spock's words would magically put the language into his head.

"He is St'anasah, a navigator."

_Is,_ Arik repeated glumly to himself. Spock had said 'is', not 'was'. That respect for a life and how it carried on after death, even if only through a memorial.

"His report concerns a course he and helmsman Sloteff devised to the Belisian system. The course is still used today."

"I, I don't look like him, do I?"

Spock gave it serious thought. "No, I do not see a resemblance."

"Neither do I. That's good." Arik suddenly slammed a fist on the wall, then just as quickly, made a cry and laid his hand flat on the same spot. As if he had hurt St'anasah and wanted to soothe it. "_Why_ didn't I learn the language when everyone offered? Then I could read this! It's wrong that I can't read their names!"

"I am certain you had a good reason."

_No, I didn't._ It seemed like nothing when he made the decision years ago, when they asked him if he wanted to be Vulcan or know anything of his parent's homeworld. "Do you want to know what my 'good' reason was?"

Spock said nothing because Arik didn't give him the chance. "I was afraid! Not of you. All of you on the _Symmetry_ were so nice. You did things like talking quietly so you wouldn't scare us. You gave us food and clothes and a place to sleep. A place that was _safe_. Even that doctor -- Salok, right? -- when he touched us to heal something, it never hurt. Never. And none of you ever laughed at me or threatened me. Never. But you were big! I mean, _powerful_ ...everyone was so _strong_. Like the Romulans were strong."

"No, wait! I didn't mean that. I didn't mean you were like the Romulans. I meant you were -- you had -- courage. You had... strength, guts. That sounds stupid, but -- Micar's like you, Saavik's like all of you. Strong. Not me. I couldn't be like any of you. I don't have it in me. All of you Vulcans told me I did, that I could do whatever I wanted, but I knew better. I'm a coward. I can't -- I can't be calm when things are tough. I can't look someone else in the eye."

"So I ran, just like I did from Komal and the others. And the Romulans. Not just because they were bad -- because you're not, I know that. But they got more guts than me. That's why I'm standing here and I can't even give these people the respect of reading their names. Because I was afraid, and I thought if I learned anything about here, like the language, it'd just remind me I didn't have the guts to learn it all."

Spock said after a pause, "I do not believe, Arik, that I am the person to convince you otherwise. You would think I am merely noting characteristics that are not there. So I suggest you speak with the others. You will discover your fears and trials are not unique."

Arik stayed stubbornly silent, and Spock gave something like a sigh. "Speak with Saavik regarding her experience in learning the Vulcan language."

"I can imagine."

"No, you cannot." Arik perked up, but Spock raised an eyebrow. "I cannot tell you. She would not appreciate my doing so, and that statement undermines the force of her reaction."

"I was changing my mind about going to Saavik -- you know, I told you I really wanted to see her? After Phase II."

Spock eyed him strangely, but Arik didn't know why. "But maybe I'll try to find her and then I can ask her about that question."

The Vulcan nodded slowly, and then suggested: "Perhaps a change of subject?"

"Yeah, I'd like that."

"Are you alone here? The hospital reported giving the directions to Jdehn."

"She's here. She's in another aisle. So's Mekhai because they're older. They guessed their parents were on the _Constant_, but they might have been born on the _Perceptor_ and not put into --- um, well Phase II until long after they got captured."

Spock nodded again, but Arik wondered if hearing that really didn't bother him. He guessed it did or Vulcan wouldn't have built this memorial.

"You have established a relationship with Mekhai then, Arik?"

"No, he invited himself when he found out where we were going. But he is all of a sudden... polite... since Phase II, so he's not the hassle I thought he'd be. So far."

He still kept a distance from the other half-Romulan male.

_Coward_.

"I wished to speak with you regarding questions we have on your arrival."

"Oh, yeah. Sure. I'm supposed to meet up with them about now anyway."

"Only if you wish to leave. I did not come to intrude."

Arik took a few more steps and stopped suddenly at an embedded screen. Somehow, he knew this woman. On Hellguard. Smaller than him, maybe smaller than Jdehn... he couldn't tell because she sat behind a desk. Her dark hair and brown eyes didn't help him.

"Sir, what's her name? I think I remember her."

When he had compared her with Jdehn, it had sparked something. But he didn't remember her ever being with Jdehn. Hellguard Vulcans had taken time with the hybrids, sometimes disastrously. Other times ended with the hybrid staying alive when they would have died, like their helping Micar when his severed finger bled out and stayed attached to his hand only through a last bit of skin.

"She is T'Pren."

That was it. _T'Pren._ Her name was spoken a lot when she had escaped.

Spock said, "She is the woman who escaped the Romulans to warn Vulcan of the colony. And to tell us of all of you."

Of course! How had he forgotten her? He owed her his life.

He remembered her being close to Saavik. How he had heard whispers the day T'Pren disappeared, how Saavik had supposedly attacked Romulan centurions and been captured. How everyone figured both T'Pren and Saavik were now dead. How nobody could believe it when Saavik showed up alive... and with a knife.

_Maybe coming here wasn't such a good idea._ When they found out about the memorial, he and Jdehn thought they'd -- well, pay their respects. But actually being here and remembering all this...

Silence hung like a thick layer of fog, a tangible atmosphere that the small pockets of visitors moved through. He felt like he breathed it in and it seeped into his bones.

He ran a hand down his light gray tunic, wiping off the sweat he imagined was there. He wore the shirt over yet another pair of muddy brown pants. Jdehn had went on for some time about his lousy clothes, asking him who had ever taught him to pick them out. His mom -- by adoption -- often scolded him for the same thing, but his dad once pulled him aside and said he didn't have to worry about making himself invisible anymore. Arik guessed his father was right. He was still trying to disappear into the background, like he had on Hellguard.

His clothes certainly didn't blend into this background. He stood out amongst the Vulcans. He didn't have their bearing or serenity, not even their hushed reverence or their clothing. But he remembered again, that this was what he wanted when they offered him the chance to study anything about Vulcan.

The soft, trolling sound of a small gong sounded, drifting down the aisle between the marble slabs. As if a breeze caught them, the candles flickered, casting hints of shadow and warm fire on the name and face next to his hand. He wanted to press his forehead against T'Pren's face, let the tears flow so the building pressure in his chest might ease. But for some reason that he didn't understand, he couldn't.

"I'm really glad you came," he told Spock.

"I was not certain you would be. The hospital told me you turned down the offer of a guide."

"Can you blame us? I mean, you're different, but somebody else--"

The Vulcans walked by in the direction of the gong, and they must have guessed who he was. He saw his own haunted reflection next to T'Pren's engraved face and turned away.

"No, I do not blame you," Spock was saying. "I understand your point. However, Salok, the healer on the _Symmetry_, was one of the guides they offered. I mention it only so you know for the future. You may also contact me at any time, Arik, regarding anything you wish to see or discuss."

"Thanks. Really. I'll remember. Salok'd be good too. I guess I wasn't paying attention at the hospital. Sir--"

"Spock."

"Right, Spock -- where are they going?" he asked, indicating the Vulcans and with them, the gong that had sounded a moment ago.

"A ceremony is about to take place." With a gesture, Spock asked if Arik wanted to see it.

He bet he was going to regret this.

He followed the others past all the faces and accomplishments that made the _Diversity_ crew who they were. At the end of all four memorial pathways, he found a replica of the Hall of Ancient Thought, where supposedly Vulcan spirits lived another life after death. Spock whispered that if they walked all four paths, it would take them a thousand footsteps, the same number as the actual steps up Mt. Seleya to the real Hall. This one was much smaller, its doors in the front and back opened, with duplicates of the ships' dedication plates fastened there. The air pulled through the opened doorways, whistling in the echoed emptiness. No katras from the captured four crews were recovered, except T'Pren's by Spock. The vacant duplicate of the ancient Hall made that loss clear.

A rack of small bells and the small gong that had rung stood in the ground next to the doors. Grains of sand blew against them, making tiny strikes of sound. Jdehn came out from the _Constant_'s pathway, her eyes slightly emerald as if she fought tears too. Mekhai looked ill.

Both of the other half-Romulans got wide eyed at Spock's presence, and since they were here instead of a neutral place like the hospital, they also got more than a little tongue tied.

Most of the Vulcans that had walked with Arik through the _Diversity_ path moved closer to the empty hall. He wondered if he was supposed to follow them, but waited for Jdehn to get closer.

"What's going on?" she whispered, not to Spock whom she still couldn't face, but Arik. He could only shrug. "Should we ask?"

No amount of willpower could make him ask anybody here a question, not even Spock. Not when he was the result of them losing their families.

But Spock must have overheard them. "Today marks an anniversary of the _Diversity_'s capture. The eldest and youngest of the families will gather here during the day to observe the mourning rite."

Arik felt the blood drain from his face. Spock stepped closer.

"Do you need to return to the hospital?" He signaled to another Vulcan male, not much older than them and in brown healer's robes.

Mumbling he was fine and thanking the Vulcan for his help, Arik found himself turning around and putting Spock between them and the healer. The Vulcan merely nodded and moved towards the others closer to the memorial hall.

"Guess we standin' out," Mekhai mumbled, Hellguard still sounding thickly in his words.

Jdehn jumped on him with a sharp hiss. "Don't use that damned accent here! What the hell is wrong with you!"

Even Arik shivered and kept his eyes plastered to the ground so he couldn't see the memorial with Hellguard's thick, common accent in his ears. He at last stared back down that row of faces in the marble, one of them his parent, saw all they had achieved, and how it had ended with him. Jdehn started crying softly, and brushed the tears away with a hard fist.

People turned to stare. Recognition and stillness showed in the Vulcans' expressions, then, in the few non-Vulcans, wariness -- even fear. He heard conversations end abruptly when they saw him. No one came here without having a tie to the lost crews; no tourist could stumble upon it. So they knew who he was, and he knew exactly what was behind the humans' shock. And fear or rage. He saw it repeatedly over his years in the Federation. It was why he never went to Earth.

Then a few Vulcans, still staring, bowed their heads as they would to any of their kind.

Jdehn whispered. "Damn, that was nice of them, wasn't it?"

A few of these same Vulcans broke away and walked towards them. They displayed nothing but the usual stoicism, so Arik didn't understand why Jdehn suddenly said, "Oh no--"

He took her hand. The contact tingled and teased their touch telepath senses. If they hadn't just been lovers, he never would have dared it. He looked around trying to find the problem. She bit her bottom lip, even chewed on it. "That second one on the right. Do I... look like him?"

Arik stared at the Vulcan she meant. He couldn't tell if she looked like him or not, but he felt his heart pound in his throat, choked on it, and then the Vulcan stopped in his tracks. Jdehn held up a hesitant hand, not a wave or any other gesture Arik recognized, but the Vulcans stopped too.

"Let's get out of here!" she whispered. She tried to bob her head to the Vulcans, but the uncomfortable jerking movement only stressed Arik's self-conscious feeling.

The ill look came down again on Mekhai. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. C'mon, let's go."

Arik hastily told Spock, without really explaining. The older male looked from Jdehn to the Vulcans now at a stand still. When he looked back, he appeared at a loss.

It never occurred to Arik before that Spock might not know how to talk to them.

As quietly and unobtrusively as possible, they slunk away, keeping their eyes to the ground, away from the faces and the marble monoliths. The only thing that made them Vulcan was the biology of one parent, and with that parent dead because of his birth, Arik felt he had no right here.

They said not one word between them until they reached Jdehn's ship.


	16. Chapter 16

Jdehn worked the controls for the ramp to her ship. A hot breeze stirred her purple skirt around her boot tops. She had put aside her usual ship suits and worn something more "respectable" to the memorial. Mekhai had done the same, if that hard, overbuilt body could ever look less aggressive, even in the simple blue shirt and pants.

"Do you think--" Arik asked, taking a couple steps ahead of Mekhai as he did so. "Do you think we totally cocked that up?"

He meant the memorial. Funny, on the way there, Jdehn felt connected to Vulcan for the first time. It wasn't just that place, out there somewhere. It was the planet one of her parents had been born to, where he or she had been a child. In her mind's eye, she had pictured some little girl who looked vaguely like her, growing up under this sky, going to school, and talking to friends. Being with a family. And then, her mother grew to be a new adult who went out to the stars. The way she had.

Now, after the memorial, the only connection she felt was... Romulan. And she didn't dare picture that little Vulcan girl anymore.

Rationalizing that it might have been a little Vulcan boy didn't help.

"Let it go," Jdehn said, feeling like something she'd scrape off the landing gear. "We tried. And the people at the end, right before we left--"

"We didn' _leave_. We _ran off_," Mekhai mumbled.

"Well, anyway... they seemed okay about us being there."

The ramp lowered and she walked up halfway, turning to say something else when she looked over Arik's head and smiled. She had almost forgotten about Spock. She hadn't really gotten the chance to talk to him before. At the memorial. The sad truth was that his standing at that haunting place served as another reminder of her life on Hellguard.

Actually, of her life right _after_ Hellguard and all the years since then, when she had spat insults at the Vulcans.

Why?

Because she had been a stupid hurt kid who had found out what _parents_ were and that neither of hers had wanted her.

Vulcans bore the brunt of her lashing out over that. They were within easier reach than the Romulans. Only _her_ pain mattered, and it ran deep and raw.

Until she had gone to the memorial. And saw things at last through her Vulcan heart.

With the embrace of her ship only a few steps away, however, Spock became the leader of that rescue party again and she could smile at the sight of him.

He stood in the midst of the other small freighters resting in the open air bay so that friend of his, Kirk, could catch up. For some reason, the human didn't wear a uniform but a two-toned gray tunic. She knew he was in Starfleet, but had yet to see the man wear anything but regular clothing.

"I don't know if Spock mentioned it," Kirk called out as they drew closer, "but we hoped we could ask you a couple questions."

"'Bout what?" Mekhai asked.

The Starfleet captain sized that up -- who could blame him after the restaurant? -- but it looked like Mekhai didn't mean anything by it. He just stood there, relaxed and waiting. Maybe even _he_ behaved when Spock was around.

Maybe that was why Spock was the one who answered. "Our investigation into the guilty party behind the disease has led us to a time discrepancy on the day of your arrival. Not to mention the matter of the medical team being called to the ship."

"What do you mean?" Arik asked.

"Look," Jdehn interrupted and waved a hand towards her freighter. "Why don't we go inside? It'll be more comfortable."

Her pleasure over Spock thanking her for her hospitality was nothing compared to his looking over the bulbous, dull gray ship with its flat sensor arrays and hatches. "Katarin freighter class. Mark seven series."

Of course _Spock_ knew such things. "That's exactly right, sir."

"You have named it the _Independent_, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"The sir is unnecessary, Jdehn. If you will, call me Spock."

"I - thanks." She started to feel a lot better, and gestured for him to precede her. Then she remembered Kirk and stood aside for him too. She almost forgot that Mekhai and Arik still stood outside. Her pon farr lover jogged up the ramp, grinning ear to ear.

The _Independent_ wrapped its cool, dark and utilitarian atmosphere around her. It was good to be home again.

She called for half lights and motioned for everyone to follow her up the one passage jutting off the tiny crew area. Like any freighter, her ship was one compact space after another, saving all its room for cargo bays and its systems. Its colors amounted to nothing more than shades of gray except where an exposed circuit or indicator flashed some bright blue, red or other gaiety. Jdehn was one of those spacers who took in the downright dull of her ship's looks and saw a belle of the stars. She considered the _Independent_ to be like her: no great beauty, not the ugliest thing you ever saw, and in character and function, a damn sight better than all right.

Even with the cramped corridor, slim Arik had enough room to slip past the others so he could catch up to her and lean close to tease.

"Look at me, Spock! I got a ship, Spock!" he whispered in her ear. "I'm Captain Independent, Spock!"

She jabbed him playfully in the side. "Shut up, you idiot."

Mekhai, on the other hand, simply walked onto the small bridge and leaned against a console. His being quiet just had to be because Spock was here. That or Phase II had really taken the wind out of his sails. It certainly had done it to her.

Jdehn plunked down into her pilot's seat. "So, what did you want to ask?"

Spock folded his hands behind him and remained standing near the bridge's hatch, but Kirk neatly sized up the console near him before he hitched a hip onto its edge. She leaned over and flicked a few controls, shutting down that panel anyway, just to be safe. He smiled with the understanding of a seasoned spacer.

All the bridge controls were actually one long console that wrapped around half the small room with systems and equipment rooted in the bulkhead on either side of the hatch. Small indentations in the large board and seats in front of each position formed three slightly sectioned stations. She routed all functions to where she sat as the pilot, shutting down all other posts; then hit another control to raise the viewscreen revealing a narrow, rectangular port that let in more light. Otherwise, the bridge was lit by low level overheads and the console indicators.

She loved its intimacy.

Kirk answered her. "From what we gathered, you initially planned to land at the orbital station and meet the Science Academy team in the station's Sickbay."

She was suddenly struck by how much he reminded her of someone who had fostered her for a awhile. A man and his wife who had thought they were so well equipped as humans to handle the torn, emotional Jdehn. But their fantasy fell beneath the reality of her psychological baggage, and she had to move on.

"Uh--" She tried to think back before the haze of the mock pon farr. Easier said than done since just about everything from the landing to now was a blur, except for the restaurant and the memorial. The more she tried to focus, the harder it got.

Arik's forehead screwed up with concentration while Mekhai just stood there looking back. Great, when she needed him to talk, he shut up.

"Yeah... that's right. They said they didn't want us going down to the planet until they found out if we got the disease or not. They said the Sickbay tests would show them enough to figure that out."

Kirk nodded. "All right. You landed and told station control you were headed for Sickbay. You lowered the ramp but then contacted Control again saying you needed to make minor system repairs."

She butted in. "We landed early, so I didn't make us late by fixing things right away."

Kirk shot a look to Spock who flicked up an eyebrow. He turned back to her. "But you were late for meeting them."

"Well, maybe a little. I don't know what the big deal is, saying it's a 'time discrepancy'."

"Because it was thirty minutes."

She blinked at him. She couldn't think of anything else to do.

"Thirty three point five seven to be exact," Spock stated.

"That's why the medical team came to your ship instead of meeting you at Sickbay. But you later reported you were on time."

Arik stared at her, wide eyed and as stupidly as she felt.

"Okay, I wondered why they changed that and came to the ship."

Spock explained. "They attempted contacting you, but received no reply. They came to the ship to investigate."

"They contacted-- nobody commed me," Jdehn protested. "If they had, I would've told them what was going on."

But he said, "We verified their comm logs. Their first attempt happened 15.43 minutes after your landing. They received no reply, not even from the _Independent_'s automatic signal acknowledging the contact."

She almost interrupted, but Spock gestured for her to let him finish.

"They received the same silence on each of their three consecutive tries. The deck officer then reported you had raised the ship's ramp. They came to investigate. After two attempts to reach you, you once more lowered the lamp."

"I remember that part. I guess the time got away from me when I was making the repairs."

"Do you have an explanation as to why you do not remember their attempts to contact you?"

No, she didn't, and that was scary. She remembered needing repairs and thinking how much it worked on her nerves to actually be on Vulcan -- any part of Vulcan, even an orbital station. The repairs had been minor stuff, but she put off seeing the medical team for as long as possible. Her stomach had spun when she thought about facing them: the first Vulcans since her lessons on protecting her mind, when she had spat at the teacher that it was the _last_ Vulcan thing she was ever going to learn. "Well... no... but I probably just shut the thing off. Or something fried it."

Kirk leaned forward. "Could you check that?"

Spock added, "Perhaps your maintenance logs?"

She answered, dragging the word out, "Sure."

Like most independents, most of her logs were in her head. She wasn't Starfleet or some other big outfit; she kept what the ports required for her to dock and that's it. When Spock stepped closer and offered to help her search, she prayed she had recorded the repairs from the other day.

A knot of tension formed behind her eyes.

She started punching at a few controls, hoping that if she hunched forward, Spock couldn't see how iffy her records were. "Uh... you know, Arik and Mekhai mighta heard them trying to get hold of us."

Arik shot her a look at being made the scapegoat. She gave an apologetic shrug.

Kirk, meanwhile, picked up on her suggestion. "Can you tell me what you were during while Jdehn fixed the ship?" he asked Arik and Mekhai.

Mekhai spoke with some of his old attitude. "Waited."

"Waited where?"

"By the ramp. I was ready to go."

Arik said he was at the same spot.

"Just waited? For that whole time?"

"Didn' know it was goin' to be that long, did I?"

Jdehn glanced up and caught Kirk taking a breath. Mekhai would try the patience of a saint.

"No, you didn't," Kirk said after a beat. "What I meant was, did you stand the whole time at the ramp? Or did you maybe get tired of standing there and move away? Perhaps checking in with Jdehn?"

Thanks to whatever piece of luck that watched over space rats like her, Jdehn found a list of repairs and what parts she needed to replace in ship's stock. "Hot damn!" she said in way of a prayer of thanks. Sheepishly remembering who stood next to her, she swapped her relief for a big smile.

Spock only lifted an eyebrow as if used to this sort of behavior. No wonder they said Saavik hung around him for so long.

They also said he and Saavik weren't talking now.

She didn't give that thought, or why a part of her pushed to fill that empty spot with Spock, too hard of a look. "Found those repairs," she said. "Took a little bit. But it's my ship, so my way of keeping logs."

He nodded and asked if she would bring up the schematics for those areas.

Mekhai ignored them and laced his fingers behind his head. "Ok, yeah. I got bored."

When he said nothing else after a beat, Kirk encouraged him. "And you did... what about it?"

"Walked around."

"Walked around where?"

"'Round the ship."

"You didn't leave it? Did you come up here or go down to the engines where Jdehn was?"

"Just 'round."

"Did you hear the station control paging the ship?"

"No. I -- no. I dunno."

Spock looked up from the console. "Captain, ship communications register the station's contacts."

They both looked down at her. "Jdehn?"

She blew out a breath. "I didn't get 'em. I mean, the ship didn't tell me -- well, you know what I mean. But I'm still checking if the comm panel blew out down in the engine room."

After all, she had crewed the flight herself. Equipment wore down, accidents happened, especially on a hard working freighter with limited resources. She hadn't checked the comm system down there in ages. More important things -- like the engines -- got her daily attention.

Kirk asked Mekhai again if he had heard it, but even though he asked it as just another question, the half-Romulan snapped.

"I said no!"

The Starfleet officer somehow kept his patience. Jdehn gave him credit for that. "You didn't hear it or you didn't answer it?"

"Look, how am I knowin' what the comm sounds like? I'm just ridin' this bird. It ain't mine." He rubbed at his neck, his eyes squeezing shut.

Kirk got up from the console and walked over to him. "Mekhai, are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine. Just got a headache."

Jdehn added without thinking about it, "You're not the only one." That knot behind her eyes got worse as she dug through the schematics. It spread behind her eyes and became a pressure battering against her skull like it would crack the bone to break free. Her ship's inner workings, which she knew better than her own name, was turning into a struggle.

"Jdehn?" She glanced up at Spock's concern. "You have grown pale."

And her hands on the controls trembled.

"It's just been a bad day." And it was still only morning. She snapped off the screen. The lack of light should ease the headache.

It didn't. "I don't find a thing keeping that comm panel from working."

"But you still don't remember the station calling you?" Kirk asked.

"No, I don't. I don't know why. I remember--" Something had made her lean into the panel for a better look. Yes, that was right. She had leaned in and--

The knot of tension in her head shot tendrils all through her skull, pulling everything in tight. She winced with the pain. Both Kirk and Spock said something to her, but it took too much effort to make sense of their noise. Her ears even hummed with the agony and she was getting nauseous.

She nearly shouted over it, trying to hear herself over the painful static. She wanted to vomit. Her vision eclipsed down a tunnel, transporting the room far away. "I found something while I did repairs. I got closer for a look and then--"

The pain just as suddenly cleared. The answer blossomed in its place.

"I got hit with a surge. It must've blacked me out." Oh, the relief from the headache was wonderful! She slumped back in her chair and her grip on the arms eased. Her skin was clammy from sweat. Sweat! Say anything else about her being half-Vulcan, it still meant she could take a lot of heat. Not to mention, her basic biology resisted her losing any moisture. But she sat here _sweating_.

Still, it made the air circulation cool and lovely. She thought happy thoughts about a shower.

"You were not wearing protective clothing?" Spock asked.

"I know, stupid thing to do, but I was wearing gloves until-- yeah, I needed to get my hands into someplace tight, so I got rid of the gloves."

Kirk still stood over by Mekhai. "Can we see the part that surged?"

He was making that knot come back. He had better _not_ make that come back or so help her, she didn't care if he was Spock's friend, she was gonna--

"I scrapped it. What's it matter anyway?"

Spock answered, "The repairs you have in your logs are not systems which would give a power surge."

"Look," she snapped, despite the even way he spoke, "I _know_ I blacked out. Maybe I didn't list everything, but I know it happened. I blacked out and woke up feeling fried. I didn't hear 'em before, but I got the call to lower the ramp and I did it."

Kirk looked at Spock and it bugged her that he didn't look any different. Probably because again she had lost her temper while everyone else was as calm as could be.

Well, maybe not everyone. Mekhai smirked, but even that was tiny instead of his usual attitude. And yeah, he was pale, like her.

"Like you said," Kirk spoke. "You were there and we weren't." Mekhai's smirk faded away when both Spock and Kirk focused on him. "You still don't remember hearing any system on the ship signal? Did you hear Jdehn?"

"I said _no_."

Jdehn was sure Mekhai had finally gotten to even Spock, but Kirk held up a hand and after a pause, turned to Arik. "Can you help us at all with this, Arik?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since Jdehn started talking--" He got that look like his brain chewed on his stomach.

"And?"

His eyes shifted from Kirk to her. With what? Agony over not answering the comm panel or were headaches hitting anyone with Romulan blood?

She answered for Arik in a snarl. "And he knows nothin'. None of us do. We can't help. OK?"

He gave her a weak, but at least sincere, look of thanks.

Until Kirk reminded them, "We're trying to find who is attacking you with this disease."

Arik's face turned into a sea of guilt. Mekhai's looked the same for a second, and then turned to anger, which matched how Jdehn felt. Kirk was completely right, and that made it worse.

So she snapped even harder. "What does me not hearin' the med team got to do with it?"

Spock answered. "It occurred to us that at least one member of the responsible party managed to board your ship and attack you."

Dammit! That made sense.

Jdehn rubbed her hands over face. The sweat no longer felt cool, but grimy. A dried stain caking her skin.

Someone was trying to kill her. Had she actually _forgotten_ that?

She had nothing to say that wouldn't be utterly stupid, and she had said enough dumb things. But Arik and Mekhai shut up too, so the ugly silence just played on.

At last, Kirk said something. Maybe he knew how bad they felt; he sounded it. "Is there any chance you were attacked? Could someone have set off that power surge?"

She couldn't look up. She'd feel more like an idiot if she actually had to look at someone in the room. "No. I didn't hear or see anybody, and my ship cams are clear."

She knew that for a fact; she had run through them already when she shut down the _Independence_ the other day.

"If I may," Spock began. "Would you allow me to search the security files?"

She almost argued, but either was too tired or knew he was right or both. She leaned back from the console, and he worked quickly on accessing the files and sending them to the Science Academy. She scanned them again as they went by.

"Uh–" Arik shifted in his baggy brown tunic (_He really needs to learn to dress better. He makes _me _look like a fashion plate_, Jdehn thought) and then dared a glance somewhere in Spock's vicinity. Somehow, this got his chin up and he faced Kirk with a little more strength now, then just as suddenly -- was that a blush? "The thing is, when Mekhai wandered off, I sat in one of the jump couches back there and... Well, I fell asleep. I didn't wake up until the doctors came up the ramp."

She sighed to herself. She sure picked the time to mother an old lover. Clearly, Arik wasn't one she was going to walk away from without a backwards glance.

Mekhai shrugged. "Who cares? I stretched out too. Nothin' else to do 'sides waitin' around."

Mekhai sticking up for someone: Jdehn had seen it all now.

Kirk went to put his hand on Arik's shoulder -- probably as a way to say don't worry about sleeping through everything -- and he was smart enough to hold off for a second until Arik saw the hand coming.

"I think that's all we have for now. Thank you for answering our questions."

Of course Arik, out of the three of them, pointed out, "You're actually helping us so..."

Kirk smiled. "We'll need your help again. Meanwhile, you might want to have the hospital give you a physical, find out why you're all having those headaches."

Arik made some sort of groan over going back to the hospital, even with the line of sweat gleaming on his face; Mekhai's upper lip curled, and Jdehn couldn't stop a sharp, "Not me."

Spock argued, "You are still pale, Jdehn. As is Mekhai and Arik. Perhaps you left the hospital too soon or merely need additional rest."

Why'd he have to be so _nice_? She couldn't argue with his _nice_.

"I meant," She fumbled for an excuse and ended up using a real one. Imagine that. "I'm lifting off tomorrow. I got a job and I can't let it go. I lost one coming here and now the spacers I was using for tomorrow took other flights. I gotta dig up a crew _today _and make that job. I got a year before -- well, before I get really sick, but if I lose that job tomorrow, I got nothing to _get_ me into that year."

"Ask Saavik," Kirk said.

He could not have said that. "What?" she asked.

But when he spoke again, it sounded just the same. "Ask Saavik. She doesn't have to return to her ship this next year. She's available and experienced."

Jdehn was shaking her head as soon as he repeated the 'Ask Saavik' part. "No way. Sorry if it sounds rude, but no. Not her."

Of course, she couldn't get away with just saying that.

"Why not? You said you needed extra hands to do this job. Why not her?"

What was he, Saavik's booking agent or something?

"Look, this is a working freighter. It's not Starfleet. It's a whole other game. The systems, the way work goes, everything. Working your ship doesn't mean you can fit that into a job here."

Kirk didn't quite believe that, it was obvious, but he couldn't argue against her.

And then Spock ruined it. "Saavik has freighter experience." Even Kirk turned on that one. "She once informed me that she would choose to book passage on freighters, instead of traveling on passenger craft, in the days before she was fully commissioned. Especially if the freighter needed to take longer in reaching the same destination. At times, such passage entailed working with the freighter crew."

_Figures._ Frankly, Saavik popping up like this with citizenship, blowing up Hellguard, and whatever other wonderful thing she had going was starting to tick Jdehn off.

She had picked the 'nicer' reason to say earlier. Now: "OK, I confess. The real reason is like this. I don't like my 'fellow hybrids' around me in general. Yeah, Arik's an exception, but you don't got to look at Mekhai. He don't like me either." She leaned forward in her chair and jabbed her finger down at the deck. "But what I really don't need is one of them coming on my ship and playing a game of "alpha female". The _Independence_ is mine! I'm captain here. And I'm not butting heads with someone who doesn't get that. I don't need it and the ship can't run that way."

"Do you think," Kirk said, "I am... was any different when I ran my ship?"

Jdehn flopped back in her seat, chewing on the inside of her lip. _He doesn't get it_.

"You're right. Saavik, by her nature, is not a follower. But if she couldn't follow orders or if she disrupted a ship's routine because she had an attitude about not _being_ the leader, someone would have thrown her out of Starfleet on her first day. And I'd never would have let her on _Enterprise_. Neither would Spock."

Jdehn glared at him, and he held up a hand asking to finish his point as if she had spoken out loud. "Just consider it. It is your ship, you _are_ the captain, but it'd give you an experienced hand besides yours and Arik's."

Because she was aggravated, she snorted with disdain. "Arik's not a shipper. And even if he was, he's not going."

Kirk shot a look in his direction. "I thought the two of you--"

Arik grinned that honest, friendly smile that sparked his whole drab look with light. Jdehn smiled herself seeing it, but that didn't change things. "We're not _together_. That was for Phase II. It was --- for the moment. Now the _Independence_ and me gotta go. You know how it is."

She meant it in general, that Kirk understood how some people were just this way; but when he jerked back at her comment, she wondered how she could have bothered him. From what she had heard about him, he was the same as her.

Arik, the sweetheart (_I am going to miss him_.), spoke up. The way he was so clearly all right with everything supported her point that he felt no different about their being over than she did. And he made the point so naturally, so unconsciously, that everyone knew it was the truth and not him covering up hurt feelings.

She had a little tender spot for him and always would. They got through that insane time together, and she'd forever be thankful for that. But it was time to move on now, for both of them.

"I got my own plans anyway," Arik said. "In fact, _I'm_ the one who's been trying to talk to Saavik. So, Jdehn, if you're gonna ask her to come along, just give me my shot first."

Jdehn shrugged. "She's all yours. Good luck." The way Kirk and Spock stared at her made her rise up in one last defensive bout. "See, Saavik can't crew with me anyway. Arik's got plans for her and he had 'em first."

Spock lifted an eyebrow and watched Arik for a bit. So did Kirk, like they wondered what those plans were.

"Not that people asked me," Mekhai mumbled, "but I'm stayin' too."

He gave no reason, and if the others were like Jdehn, they didn't care. Still, Jim Kirk said they could use his help before he asked her, "When is your departure time?"

"Soon as possible. Anything to get away from this planet."

She immediately cringed catching Spock once more in her peripheral vision. She had insulted him. Yeah, some Vulcans would never get over Hellguard; neither would she. And she wasn't going to forgive her Vulcan parent for not somehow making sure Hellguard hadn't happened to him. Or her. But when was she going to grow up and stop beating up someone like Spock over it?

Kirk was giving her an odd look. She gave him credit for trying to understand, but he should have saved the effort. The whole thing was a mess that made no sense.

But he wasn't confused; he hadn't liked Spock and his planet getting insulted. "If that's the way you really feel, I'm surprised you came here at all."

She avoided looking at anyone, especially the tall, lean form standing next to her, knowing exactly why she had come.

Because Vulcan had paid all the bills in her childhood, had even gotten her started in shipping. Despite all her lashing out at Vulcan, she was well aware of how much they had done for her. If it had been her on that _Symmetry_ team, she'd have spaced the whole lot of the hybrids. All the fighting, demanding, ingratitude and hassle... yep, she'd have shoved the entire kit and kaboodle out the airlock.

All the years of cursing them... Jdehn put that guilty thought away, but when Vulcan contacted her over the disease, it rose to the surface. She swore she didn't have the disease, she had no symptoms, but she found she had a sense of right and wrong. If her showing up and letting them did a few scans helped out in some way, it was the least she could do.

"Obligation," Spock said.

"Conscience," she replied. She hoped he believed her.

They were leaving with one last comment on reaching her if they had any more questions. "And if you need us," Kirk asked, "we can be reached through the Science Academy."

Then they were gone.

Mekhai watched her, not saying what they all knew. She had blown it.

"Shut up," she told him.


	17. Chapter 17

Jdehn worked the controls for the ramp to her ship. A hot breeze stirred her purple skirt around her boot tops. She had put aside her usual ship suits and worn something more "respectable" to the memorial. Mekhi had done the same, if that hard, overbuilt body could ever look less aggressive, even in the simple blue shirt and pants.

"Do you think--" Arik asked, taking a couple steps ahead of Mekhi as he did so. "Do you think we totally cocked that up?"

He meant the memorial. Funny, on the way there, Jdehn felt connected to Vulcan for the first time. It wasn't just that place, out there somewhere. It was the planet one of her parents had been born to, where he or she had been a child. In her mind's eye, she had pictured some little girl who looked vaguely like her, growing up under this sky, going to school, and talking to friends. Being with a family. And then, her mother grew to be a new adult who went out to the stars. The way she had.

Now, after the memorial, the only connection she felt was... Romulan. And she didn't dare picture that little Vulcan girl anymore.

Rationalizing that it might have been a little Vulcan boy didn't help.

"Let it go," Jdehn said, feeling like something she'd scrape off the landing gear. "We tried. And the people at the end, right before we left--"

"We didn' _leave_. We _ran off_," Mekhi mumbled.

"Well, anyway... they seemed okay about us being there."

The ramp lowered and she walked up halfway, turning to say something else when she looked over Arik's head and smiled. She had almost forgotten about Spock. She hadn't really gotten the chance to talk to him before. At the memorial. The sad truth was that his standing at that haunting place served as another reminder of her life on Hellguard.

Actually, of her life right _after_ Hellguard and all the years since then, when she had spat insults at the Vulcans.

Why?

Because she had been a stupid hurt kid who had found out what _parents_ were and that neither of hers had wanted her.

Vulcans bore the brunt of her lashing out over that. They were within easier reach than the Romulans. Only _her_ pain mattered, and it ran deep and raw.

Until she had gone to the memorial. And saw things at last through her Vulcan heart.

With the embrace of her ship only a few steps away, however, Spock became the leader of that rescue party again and she could smile at the sight of him.

He stood in the midst of the other small freighters resting in the open air bay so that friend of his, Kirk, could catch up. For some reason, the human didn't wear a uniform but a two-toned gray tunic. She knew he was in Starfleet, but had yet to see the man wear anything but regular clothing.

"I don't know if Spock mentioned it," Kirk called out as they drew closer, "but we hoped we could ask you a couple questions."

"'Bout what?" Mekhi asked.

The Starfleet captain sized that up -- who could blame him after the restaurant? -- but it looked like Mekhi didn't mean anything by it. He just stood there, relaxed and waiting. Maybe even _he_ behaved when Spock was around.

Maybe that was why Spock was the one who answered. "Our investigation into the guilty party behind the disease has led us to a time discrepancy on the day of your arrival. Not to mention the matter of the medical team being called to the ship."

"What do you mean?" Arik asked.

"Look," Jdehn interrupted and waved a hand towards her freighter. "Why don't we go inside? It'll be more comfortable."

Her pleasure over Spock thanking her for her hospitality was nothing compared to his looking over the bulbous, dull gray ship with its flat sensor arrays and hatches. "Katarin freighter class. Mark seven series."

Of course _Spock_ knew such things. "That's exactly right, sir."

"You have named it the _Independent_, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"The sir is unnecessary, Jdehn. If you will, call me Spock."

"I - thanks." She started to feel a lot better, and gestured for him to precede her. Then she remembered Kirk and stood aside for him too. She almost forgot that Mekhi and Arik still stood outside. Her pon farr lover jogged up the ramp, grinning ear to ear.

The _Independent_ wrapped its cool, dark and utilitarian atmosphere around her. It was good to be home again.

She called for half lights and motioned for everyone to follow her up the one passage jutting off the tiny crew area. Like any freighter, her ship was one compact space after another, saving all its room for cargo bays and its systems. Its colors amounted to nothing more than shades of gray except where an exposed circuit or indicator flashed some bright blue, red or other gaiety. Jdehn was one of those spacers who took in the downright dull of her ship's looks and saw a belle of the stars. She considered the _Independent_ to be like her: no great beauty, not the ugliest thing you ever saw, and in character and function, a damn sight better than all right.

Even with the cramped corridor, slim Arik had enough room to slip past the others so he could catch up to her and lean close to tease.

"Look at me, Spock! I got a ship, Spock!" he whispered in her ear. "I'm Captain Independent, Spock!"

She jabbed him playfully in the side. "Shut up, you idiot."

Mekhi, on the other hand, simply walked onto the small bridge and leaned against a console. His being quiet just had to be because Spock was here. That or Phase II had really taken the wind out of his sails. It certainly had done it to her.

Jdehn plunked down into her pilot's seat. "So, what did you want to ask?"

Spock folded his hands behind him and remained standing near the bridge's hatch, but Kirk neatly sized up the console near him before he hitched a hip onto its edge. She leaned over and flicked a few controls, shutting down that panel anyway, just to be safe. He smiled with the understanding of a seasoned spacer.

All the bridge controls were actually one long console that wrapped around half the small room with systems and equipment rooted in the bulkhead on either side of the hatch. Small indentations in the large board and seats in front of each position formed three slightly sectioned stations. She routed all functions to where she sat as the pilot, shutting down all other posts; then hit another control to raise the viewscreen revealing a narrow, rectangular port that let in more light. Otherwise, the bridge was lit by low level overheads and the console indicators.

She loved its intimacy.

Kirk answered her. "From what we gathered, you initially planned to land at the orbital station and meet the Science Academy team in the station's Sickbay."

She was suddenly struck by how much he reminded her of someone who had fostered her for a awhile. A man and his wife who had thought they were so well equipped as humans to handle the torn, emotional Jdehn. But their fantasy fell beneath the reality of her psychological baggage, and she had to move on.

"Uh--" She tried to think back before the haze of the mock pon farr. Easier said than done since just about everything from the landing to now was a blur, except for the restaurant and the memorial. The more she tried to focus, the harder it got.

Arik's forehead screwed up with concentration while Mekhi just stood there looking back. Great, when she needed him to talk, he shut up.

"Yeah... that's right. They said they didn't want us going down to the planet until they found out if we got the disease or not. They said the Sickbay tests would show them enough to figure that out."

Kirk nodded. "All right. You landed and told station control you were headed for Sickbay. You lowered the ramp but then contacted Control again saying you needed to make minor system repairs."

She butted in. "We landed early, so I didn't make us late by fixing things right away."

Kirk shot a look to Spock who flicked up an eyebrow. He turned back to her. "But you were late for meeting them."

"Well, maybe a little. I don't know what the big deal is, saying it's a 'time discrepancy'."

"Because it was thirty minutes."

She blinked at him. She couldn't think of anything else to do.

"Thirty three point five seven to be exact," Spock stated.

"That's why the medical team came to your ship instead of meeting you at Sickbay. But you later reported you were on time."

Arik stared at her, wide eyed and as stupidly as she felt.

"Okay, I wondered why they changed that and came to the ship."

Spock explained. "They attempted contacting you, but received no reply. They came to the ship to investigate."

"They contacted-- nobody commed me," Jdehn protested. "If they had, I would've told them what was going on."

But he said, "We verified their comm logs. Their first attempt happened 15.43 minutes after your landing. They received no reply, not even from the _Independent_'s automatic signal acknowledging the contact."

She almost interrupted, but Spock gestured for her to let him finish.

"They received the same silence on each of their three consecutive tries. The deck officer then reported you had raised the ship's ramp. They came to investigate. After two attempts to reach you, you once more lowered the lamp."

"I remember that part. I guess the time got away from me when I was making the repairs."

"Do you have an explanation as to why you do not remember their attempts to contact you?"

No, she didn't, and that was scary. She remembered needing repairs and thinking how much it worked on her nerves to actually be on Vulcan -- any part of Vulcan, even an orbital station. The repairs had been minor stuff, but she put off seeing the medical team for as long as possible. Her stomach had spun when she thought about facing them: the first Vulcans since her lessons on protecting her mind, when she had spat at the teacher that it was the _last_ Vulcan thing she was ever going to learn. "Well... no... but I probably just shut the thing off. Or something fried it."

Kirk leaned forward. "Could you check that?"

Spock added, "Perhaps your maintenance logs?"

She answered, dragging the word out, "Sure."

Like most independents, most of her logs were in her head. She wasn't Starfleet or some other big outfit; she kept what the ports required for her to dock and that's it. When Spock stepped closer and offered to help her search, she prayed she had recorded the repairs from the other day.

A knot of tension formed behind her eyes.

She started punching at a few controls, hoping that if she hunched forward, Spock couldn't see how iffy her records were. "Uh... you know, Arik and Mekhi mighta heard them trying to get hold of us."

Arik shot her a look at being made the scapegoat. She gave an apologetic shrug.

Kirk, meanwhile, picked up on her suggestion. "Can you tell me what you were during while Jdehn fixed the ship?" he asked Arik and Mekhi.

Mekhi spoke with some of his old attitude. "Waited."

"Waited where?"

"By the ramp. I was ready to go."

Arik said he was at the same spot.

"Just waited? For that whole time?"

"Didn' know it was goin' to be that long, did I?"

Jdehn glanced up and caught Kirk taking a breath. Mekhi would try the patience of a saint.

"No, you didn't," Kirk said after a beat. "What I meant was, did you stand the whole time at the ramp? Or did you maybe get tired of standing there and move away? Perhaps checking in with Jdehn?"

Thanks to whatever piece of luck that watched over space rats like her, Jdehn found a list of repairs and what parts she needed to replace in ship's stock. "Hot damn!" she said in way of a prayer of thanks. Sheepishly remembering who stood next to her, she swapped her relief for a big smile.

Spock only lifted an eyebrow as if used to this sort of behavior. No wonder they said Saavik hung around him for so long.

They also said he and Saavik weren't talking now.

She didn't give that thought, or why a part of her pushed to fill that empty spot with Spock, too hard of a look. "Found those repairs," she said. "Took a little bit. But it's my ship, so my way of keeping logs."

He nodded and asked if she would bring up the schematics for those areas.

Mekhi ignored them and laced his fingers behind his head. "Ok, yeah. I got bored."

When he said nothing else after a beat, Kirk encouraged him. "And you did... what about it?"

"Walked around."

"Walked around where?"

"'Round the ship."

"You didn't leave it? Did you come up here or go down to the engines where Jdehn was?"

"Just 'round."

"Did you hear the station control paging the ship?"

"No. I -- no. I dunno."

Spock looked up from the console. "Captain, ship communications register the station's contacts."

They both looked down at her. "Jdehn?"

She blew out a breath. "I didn't get 'em. I mean, the ship didn't tell me -- well, you know what I mean. But I'm still checking if the comm panel blew out down in the engine room."

After all, she had crewed the flight herself. Equipment wore down, accidents happened, especially on a hard working freighter with limited resources. She hadn't checked the comm system down there in ages. More important things -- like the engines -- got her daily attention.

Kirk asked Mekhi again if he had heard it, but even though he asked it as just another question, the half-Romulan snapped.

"I said no!"

The Starfleet officer somehow kept his patience. Jdehn gave him credit for that. "You didn't hear it or you didn't answer it?"

"Look, how am I knowin' what the comm sounds like? I'm just ridin' this bird. It ain't mine." He rubbed at his neck, his eyes squeezing shut.

Kirk got up from the console and walked over to him. "Mekhi, are you all right?"

"Yeah, fine. Just got a headache."

Jdehn added without thinking about it, "You're not the only one." That knot behind her eyes got worse as she dug through the schematics. It spread behind her eyes and became a pressure battering against her skull like it would crack the bone to break free. Her ship's inner workings, which she knew better than her own name, was turning into a struggle.

"Jdehn?" She glanced up at Spock's concern. "You have grown pale."

And her hands on the controls trembled.

"It's just been a bad day." And it was still only morning. She snapped off the screen. The lack of light should ease the headache.

It didn't. "I don't find a thing keeping that comm panel from working."

"But you still don't remember the station calling you?" Kirk asked.

"No, I don't. I don't know why. I remember--" Something had made her lean into the panel for a better look. Yes, that was right. She had leaned in and--

The knot of tension in her head shot tendrils all through her skull, pulling everything in tight. She winced with the pain. Both Kirk and Spock said something to her, but it took too much effort to make sense of their noise. Her ears even hummed with the agony and she was getting nauseous.

She nearly shouted over it, trying to hear herself over the painful static. She wanted to vomit. Her vision eclipsed down a tunnel, transporting the room far away. "I found something while I did repairs. I got closer for a look and then--"

The pain just as suddenly cleared. The answer blossomed in its place.

"I got hit with a surge. It must've blacked me out." Oh, the relief from the headache was wonderful! She slumped back in her chair and her grip on the arms eased. Her skin was clammy from sweat. Sweat! Say anything else about her being half-Vulcan, it still meant she could take a lot of heat. Not to mention, her basic biology resisted her losing any moisture. But she sat here _sweating_.

Still, it made the air circulation cool and lovely. She thought happy thoughts about a shower.

"You were not wearing protective clothing?" Spock asked.

"I know, stupid thing to do, but I was wearing gloves until-- yeah, I needed to get my hands into someplace tight, so I got rid of the gloves."

Kirk still stood over by Mekhi. "Can we see the part that surged?"

He was making that knot come back. He had better _not_ make that come back or so help her, she didn't care if he was Spock's friend, she was gonna--

"I scrapped it. What's it matter anyway?"

Spock answered, "The repairs you have in your logs are not systems which would give a power surge."

"Look," she snapped, despite the even way he spoke, "I _know_ I blacked out. Maybe I didn't list everything, but I know it happened. I blacked out and woke up feeling fried. I didn't hear 'em before, but I got the call to lower the ramp and I did it."

Kirk looked at Spock and it bugged her that he didn't look any different. Probably because again she had lost her temper while everyone else was as calm as could be.

Well, maybe not everyone. Mekhi smirked, but even that was tiny instead of his usual attitude. And yeah, he was pale, like her.

"Like you said," Kirk spoke. "You were there and we weren't." Mekhi's smirk faded away when both Spock and Kirk focused on him. "You still don't remember hearing any system on the ship signal? Did you hear Jdehn?"

"I said _no_."

Jdehn was sure Mekhi had finally gotten to even Spock, but Kirk held up a hand and after a pause, turned to Arik. "Can you help us at all with this, Arik?"

"I've been thinking about it ever since Jdehn started talking--" He got that look like his brain chewed on his stomach.

"And?"

His eyes shifted from Kirk to her. With what? Agony over not answering the comm panel or were headaches hitting anyone with Romulan blood?

She answered for Arik in a snarl. "And he knows nothin'. None of us do. We can't help. OK?"

He gave her a weak, but at least sincere, look of thanks.

Until Kirk reminded them, "We're trying to find who is attacking you with this disease."

Arik's face turned into a sea of guilt. Mekhi's looked the same for a second, and then turned to anger, which matched how Jdehn felt. Kirk was completely right, and that made it worse.

So she snapped even harder. "What does me not hearin' the med team got to do with it?"

Spock answered. "It occurred to us that at least one member of the responsible party managed to board your ship and attack you."

Dammit! That made sense.

Jdehn rubbed her hands over face. The sweat no longer felt cool, but grimy. A dried stain caking her skin.

Someone was trying to kill her. Had she actually _forgotten_ that?

She had nothing to say that wouldn't be utterly stupid, and she had said enough dumb things. But Arik and Mekhi shut up too, so the ugly silence just played on.

At last, Kirk said something. Maybe he knew how bad they felt; he sounded it. "Is there any chance you were attacked? Could someone have set off that power surge?"

She couldn't look up. She'd feel more like an idiot if she actually had to look at someone in the room. "No. I didn't hear or see anybody, and my ship cams are clear."

She knew that for a fact; she had run through them already when she shut down the _Independence_ the other day.

"If I may," Spock began. "Would you allow me to search the security files?"

She almost argued, but either was too tired or knew he was right or both. She leaned back from the console, and he worked quickly on accessing the files and sending them to the Science Academy. She scanned them again as they went by.

"Uh–" Arik shifted in his baggy brown tunic (_He really needs to learn to dress better. He makes _me _look like a fashion plate_, Jdehn thought) and then dared a glance somewhere in Spock's vicinity. Somehow, this got his chin up and he faced Kirk with a little more strength now, then just as suddenly -- was that a blush? "The thing is, when Mekhi wandered off, I sat in one of the jump couches back there and... Well, I fell asleep. I didn't wake up until the doctors came up the ramp."

She sighed to herself. She sure picked the time to mother an old lover. Clearly, Arik wasn't one she was going to walk away from without a backwards glance.

Mekhi shrugged. "Who cares? I stretched out too. Nothin' else to do 'sides waitin' around."

Mekhi sticking up for someone: Jdehn had seen it all now.

Kirk went to put his hand on Arik's shoulder -- probably as a way to say don't worry about sleeping through everything -- and he was smart enough to hold off for a second until Arik saw the hand coming.

"I think that's all we have for now. Thank you for answering our questions."

Of course Arik, out of the three of them, pointed out, "You're actually helping us so..."

Kirk smiled. "We'll need your help again. Meanwhile, you might want to have the hospital give you a physical, find out why you're all having those headaches."

Arik made some sort of groan over going back to the hospital, even with the line of sweat gleaming on his face; Mekhi's upper lip curled, and Jdehn couldn't stop a sharp, "Not me."

Spock argued, "You are still pale, Jdehn. As is Mekhi and Arik. Perhaps you left the hospital too soon or merely need additional rest."

Why'd he have to be so _nice_? She couldn't argue with his _nice_.

"I meant," She fumbled for an excuse and ended up using a real one. Imagine that. "I'm lifting off tomorrow. I got a job and I can't let it go. I lost one coming here and now the spacers I was using for tomorrow took other flights. I gotta dig up a crew _today _and make that job. I got a year before -- well, before I get really sick, but if I lose that job tomorrow, I got nothing to _get_ me into that year."

"Ask Saavik," Kirk said.

He could not have said that. "What?" she asked.

But when he spoke again, it sounded just the same. "Ask Saavik. She doesn't have to return to her ship this next year. She's available and experienced."

Jdehn was shaking her head as soon as he repeated the 'Ask Saavik' part. "No way. Sorry if it sounds rude, but no. Not her."

Of course, she couldn't get away with just saying that.

"Why not? You said you needed extra hands to do this job. Why not her?"

What was he, Saavik's booking agent or something?

"Look, this is a working freighter. It's not Starfleet. It's a whole other game. The systems, the way work goes, everything. Working your ship doesn't mean you can fit that into a job here."

Kirk didn't quite believe that, it was obvious, but he couldn't argue against her.

And then Spock ruined it. "Saavik has freighter experience." Even Kirk turned on that one. "She once informed me that she would choose to book passage on freighters, instead of traveling on passenger craft, in the days before she was fully commissioned. Especially if the freighter needed to take longer in reaching the same destination. At times, such passage entailed working with the freighter crew."

_Figures._ Frankly, Saavik popping up like this with citizenship, blowing up Hellguard, and whatever other wonderful thing she had going was starting to tick Jdehn off.

She had picked the 'nicer' reason to say earlier. Now: "OK, I confess. The real reason is like this. I don't like my 'fellow hybrids' around me in general. Yeah, Arik's an exception, but you don't got to look at Mekhi. He don't like me either." She leaned forward in her chair and jabbed her finger down at the deck. "But what I really don't need is one of them coming on my ship and playing a game of "alpha female". The _Independence_ is mine! I'm captain here. And I'm not butting heads with someone who doesn't get that. I don't need it and the ship can't run that way."

"Do you think," Kirk said, "I am... was any different when I ran my ship?"

Jdehn flopped back in her seat, chewing on the inside of her lip. _He doesn't get it_.

"You're right. Saavik, by her nature, is not a follower. But if she couldn't follow orders or if she disrupted a ship's routine because she had an attitude about not _being_ the leader, someone would have thrown her out of Starfleet on her first day. And I'd never would have let her on _Enterprise_. Neither would Spock."

Jdehn glared at him, and he held up a hand asking to finish his point as if she had spoken out loud. "Just consider it. It is your ship, you _are_ the captain, but it'd give you an experienced hand besides yours and Arik's."

Because she was aggravated, she snorted with disdain. "Arik's not a shipper. And even if he was, he's not going."

Kirk shot a look in his direction. "I thought the two of you--"

Arik grinned that honest, friendly smile that sparked his whole drab look with light. Jdehn smiled herself seeing it, but that didn't change things. "We're not _together_. That was for Phase II. It was --- for the moment. Now the _Independence_ and me gotta go. You know how it is."

She meant it in general, that Kirk understood how some people were just this way; but when he jerked back at her comment, she wondered how she could have bothered him. From what she had heard about him, he was the same as her.

Arik, the sweetheart (_I am going to miss him_.), spoke up. The way he was so clearly all right with everything supported her point that he felt no different about their being over than she did. And he made the point so naturally, so unconsciously, that everyone knew it was the truth and not him covering up hurt feelings.

She had a little tender spot for him and always would. They got through that insane time together, and she'd forever be thankful for that. But it was time to move on now, for both of them.

"I got my own plans anyway," Arik said. "In fact, _I'm_ the one who's been trying to talk to Saavik. So, Jdehn, if you're gonna ask her to come along, just give me my shot first."

Jdehn shrugged. "She's all yours. Good luck." The way Kirk and Spock stared at her made her rise up in one last defensive bout. "See, Saavik can't crew with me anyway. Arik's got plans for her and he had 'em first."

Spock lifted an eyebrow and watched Arik for a bit. So did Kirk, like they wondered what those plans were.

"Not that people asked me," Mekhai mumbled, "but I'm stayin' too."

He gave no reason, and if the others were like Jdehn, they didn't care. Still, Jim Kirk said they could use his help before he asked her, "When is your departure time?"

"Soon as possible. Anything to get away from this planet."

She immediately cringed catching Spock once more in her peripheral vision. She had insulted him. Yeah, some Vulcans would never get over Hellguard; neither would she. And she wasn't going to forgive her Vulcan parent for not somehow making sure Hellguard hadn't happened to him. Or her. But when was she going to grow up and stop beating up someone like Spock over it?

Kirk was giving her an odd look. She gave him credit for trying to understand, but he should have saved the effort. The whole thing was a mess that made no sense.

But he wasn't confused; he hadn't liked Spock and his planet getting insulted. "If that's the way you really feel, I'm surprised you came here at all."

She avoided looking at anyone, especially the tall, lean form standing next to her, knowing exactly why she had come.

Because Vulcan had paid all the bills in her childhood, had even gotten her started in shipping. Despite all her lashing out at Vulcan, she was well aware of how much they had done for her. If it had been her on that _Symmetry_ team, she'd have spaced the whole lot of the hybrids. All the fighting, demanding, ingratitude and hassle... yep, she'd have shoved the entire kit and kaboodle out the airlock.

All the years of cursing them... Jdehn put that guilty thought away, but when Vulcan contacted her over the disease, it rose to the surface. She swore she didn't have the disease, she had no symptoms, but she found she had a sense of right and wrong. If her showing up and letting them did a few scans helped out in some way, it was the least she could do.

"Obligation," Spock said.

"Conscience," she replied. She hoped he believed her.

They were leaving with one last comment on reaching her if they had any more questions. "And if you need us," Kirk asked, "we can be reached through the Science Academy."

Then they were gone.

Mekhi watched her, not saying what they all knew. She had blown it.

"Shut up," she told him.


	18. Chapter 18

Something was wrong. Nothing Kirk had heard on the _Independence_ changed that. Instead, it strengthened the whole reason why he and Spock had questioned the three --

He still didn't know what collective name to call Jdehn, Arik, and Mekhai. Not Romulans, of course, but not Vulcans either. Physically, they were both, but while physical names were all right for someone like a human or an Andorian, it didn't fit a Vulcan (or Romulan) that didn't embrace the culture.

Similar to how Kirk hadn't called himself a Terran in decades. He hadn't, as much as he loved Earth, since some point during his command of the _Enterprise_.

Would that change now that he had given up the Fleet?

He put that away -- and fast. Put it away with Jdehn's comment about his understanding that there was no room in their lives for both their ships and their lovers. Friends, yes. Jdehn had said that if the worst happened and she entered Phase III of the disease, she had friends who would be by her side through the ordeal.

Friends could stay. But lovers had to go.

For him, no matter how much he loved someone -- someone like Carol or Antonia, he always saw it as a choice between them and Starfleet. _Enterprise_ won every time.

So his son died hardly knowing him, his nephews barely saw him, and his lovers were set aside as a threat to his life in the Fleet.

It wasn't true of every captain. Sulu had a family; Robert April, the 1701's first captain, had been married; Hunter was in a loving group marriage and had a daughter. So many more in the Fleet were like them. Good captains every one of them, as good and committed to their ships as he was. Hunter, for instance, gave up her passion for the sciences and her love for physics when she finally had to choose between that and the _Aerfen_.

But passion for a lover and a child, that she knew how to balance with the captain's chair.

He was not her. As they so painfully found out.

Spock's reply, when Kirk mentioned that Jdehn's comment had touched on something, was simple. He merely had to decide, to make the choice. Was this merely the way his life had taken him, in which case he could choose differently, or was it his nature? If that was the case, he needed to accept it and see he wasn't wrong for being who he was. What suited one, did not suit another.

If he didn't accept it, he was going to have too many days like the one when he had stood next to Hunter in the hospital waiting room and remembered how he had once loved the _Aerfen_'s captain. How she had loved him so much in return, she had given him her dream name, which he had treasured. But he hadn't loved her enough to accept her when she asked him to marry her and be her husband. He couldn't make that commitment and he had hurt her, especially when he had gone back to her, asked her to take him back and love him again, only to leave her once more.

Looking back on that image of his predecessor, Christopher Pike, walking hand in hand with Vina brought a whole different emotion to the moment. Back then, Kirk had been glad that the broken Pike had been made whole. Now he felt envy that the _Enterprise_'s former captain had someone to go to when the Fleet was done with him.

Or, to be honest, when he had decided he was done with the Fleet.

No Vina for him. And no more _Enterprise_.

The public groundcar coming to a stop made him want to curse. He had wasted time thinking about the wrong thing. People were dying, and he sat here wallowing in self-pity brought on by a casual remark, dreading the empty apartment waiting for him on Earth.

He snatched up the tricorder on the seat next to him and got out in front of the Science Academy. The car took off again. Spock had taken the private groundcar they had been using when Kirk said he was staying behind to question the port authority.

Something in the story just didn't add up. Of course, Arik could have fallen asleep and Mekhai could have stomped around in a fit of pique, but Jdehn? Ignoring a comm signal? Or getting shocked by a ship she knew better than she knew herself? Space would have killed her by now if she was so sloppy.

And Spock was sure nothing in her logs or parts list showed it was plausible.

Something or someone had interfered. The worst case was that someone had knocked them out. The lesser of evils was Phase I of the disease had done it, causing such disorientation that Jdehn had gotten sloppy and Arik had gone asleep.

Spock had gone ahead to the Science Academy to request the security information from when the _Independence_ had landed there. Kirk stayed behind to do the same thing with the port security. Jdehn's files might show clear, but someone else's might show someone breaking into her ship.

Spock was meeting him here. Their next step was discussing the disease with McCoy and finding out if it could be behind the time discrepancy of Jdehn answering the orbital station's team and her blacking out. Not to mention, the blinding headaches they had now.

They could talk with anyone on the medical team, but Kirk had something to solve with Saavik: Valeris. And she was with McCoy.

The morning heat grew as it approached midday, making him move into the pieces of shade formed by the Science Academy's buildings. Bones was supposedly giving Saavik some sort of exam at the hospital's exercise yards. An odd place to do a physical, but then Kirk wasn't the doctor. He rounded the corner and stopped dead at the sight.

Saavik and Spock bore down on each other with lirpas.

For a second, they stood poised, ready to attack with the half-moon blades and not the bludgeoning ends aimed at each other, as they measured one other.

_What the hell happened?_

He broke into a run, ready to risk getting in between the Vulcans, even as they charged each other, to attempt disarming Saavik in time.

_Is she still suffering from the blood fever?_

"Hi, Jim!"

McCoy's shout from the stone benches near the exercise field grounded Kirk's flight before it really started. Unfortunately, he didn't stop gracefully, but stumbled for a step.

"Jim! Come over here, why are you standing there like that?"

Bones would never sit idly by if Saavik attacked Spock. And now that he stopped to think, Spock wouldn't pick up a lirpa as a way to disarm her, and he especially wouldn't take the time to remove his uniform jacket. Still, Kirk walked crab-like over to the seat by McCoy, keeping his face forward and his eyes on the Vulcans.

Who circled each other.

"How did it go with Jdehn?"

He took a deep breath, coming down off the adrenaline. _A spar_. Of course Spock and Saavik were sparring. Still, the way they looked -- it was an _intense_ match.

He told McCoy everything in a rapid report, including the headaches, getting it done as fast as possible.

"Hmmm... Saavik's not having anything like that and I'd expect it more from her. She was one of the ones who didn't... well, who went it alone for Phase II. It's why I'm not surprised about Mekhai showing residual effects."

"Bones! What the hell is going on here?"

"You mean them?" He jerked his head in the direction of the exercise field.

Sometimes, McCoy tried Kirk's patience more than he tried Spock's.

"Exercise, Jim. Some of Saavik's neurochemical levels are still a bit high because she didn't have any activity to get rid of them. She was working out alone when Spock came along and offered the match."

"She should have picked someone for Phase II." Refusing it made no sense and Saavik was more practical than that.

But McCoy shook his head. "I don't know, Jim. I still think you'd do what she did."

Long ago, Kirk had learned the skill of watching one thing play out in front of him while taking in someone reporting information. It wasn't true multi-tasking because he couldn't fully focus on both things, but it let him watch Saavik and Spock even while McCoy talked.

But he did spare a look that informed Bones that his theory was crazy.

McCoy snorted, but his voice gentled in a sign that he knew he touched on tender ground. "I know you'd do it, because it's what I'd do since I wouldn't die from it. And I'd make that choice because of you."

Kirk didn't like taking that bait, not with the match in front of him. "Bones, what are you talking about?"

"What you went through, Jim, when the transporter split your personality. Remember?"

That shot Kirk's head from the sparring match to McCoy.

An eyebrow lifted on his forehead and then he gave a little laugh at the gesture, a sad, rueful sound because of what he said next. "I've had Spock in my head, Jim. I know what pon farr is now." He brought the eyebrow down. "And I'd do what Saavik did even though it'd mean going through hell. So would you, instead of repeating --- what happened with Rand."

That horrible time -- how his unchecked lust made him attack Janice Rand and he couldn't stop it, because the _need_ burned him, forced him.

The way Spock had attacked him over T'Pring.

The doctor asked softly, "Remember what you told me, Jim? About taking that part of you back?"

_I don't want to take him back,_ is what he had said_. He's like an animal. A thoughtless, _brutal _animal. And yet it's me. Me! _

For the first time, he understood Spock's disgust over the insanity caused by pon farr.

_I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see._

But Vulcans saw that part of themselves every seven years. And could die from it, the way his inability to command in that condition had threatened his crew's lives.

So if he had been Saavik, with no one already intimate with her to be a tender partner, he'd have gone it alone too.

But looking at the way she and Spock eyed each other so carefully instead of casually going about the exercise still made him doubt that this was wise.

"Bones--"

"They need it, Jim, both of them. Let 'em go."

They had clearly gone against each other before; that was obvious from the way they watched each other for 'tells', those slight mannerisms in a person that spoke volumes. The fact that they bothered to look said they had the experience of what to look for.

Saavik struck first and her speed was surprising. It caught her opponent and their audience off-guard. Spock got his lirpa up in a block, his experience and longer reach paying off.

"Are you _sure_ this is a good idea?"

McCoy cleared his throat as if he wondered the same thing. But he was insistent. "It's not just the neurochemicals. They both need to work out what's still between them and this is a good way to open up some communication. It's indirect and it makes them remember each other." He ran over Kirk's attempt to argue. "You've been through this, Jim. We both have. When Spock came back from studying Kolinahr after his leaving felt like he rejected us. It left a scar in you, deep where nothing really reached it to heal it. Me too. When he showed up again, for the V'Ger mission, I wanted to hug him, and I wanted to keep him at bay with a ten foot pole. Or hit him with it. I didn't really trust him again for a long time. Neither did you, don't bother lying about it. It's why you got worked up over his keeping Sybok a secret. And again when you found out he -- we -- kept everything about Saavik and the other half-Romulans a secret. That scar reminded you how much trust can get you hurt." He nodded to Saavik and Spock. "They're not reacting logically and they'll never admit it. But they have scars now where they used to have a relationship. They know _they_ didn't make those scars, but it doesn't matter to the subconscious. It just keeps screaming about how badly they were hurt... and could get hurt again. And there's no V'Ger around to get them past it."

_Hunter said Saavik looked like someone with a belly wound when she thought that letter was from Spock_, Kirk thought. He nodded to the Vulcans in the ring. They had pulled back again, measuring the next move. "So... what do they do?"

"Keep each other at bay with lirpas. Let them work off the steam they haven't been able to get rid of in their meditations. Like you did when you screamed at us for keeping secrets... the way you wanted to knock our blocks off. Sooner or later, they'll get logical, but that scar isn't going away until they really open up again. Even if that means they have a new relationship instead of the old one. And _that_ won't happen if they can't do something as simple as exercise together."

Kirk still wished he felt as comfortable as McCoy did about the whole thing, but his chest ached with the memory of the lirpa blade slicing him during his fight with Spock over T'Pring.

Bones, of course, saw this. "You don't have to hang out here if you don't want to."

Kirk shook his head and looked at the match for what it was. The two Vulcans pulled back to size each other up again. Spock had the advantage of reach, height, and strength, as well as more experience with the weapon, and yet Kirk could tell he didn't view Saavik as an easy victory. She held the practice lirpa in one hand now with casual assurance, the weight not bothering her yet. That would change as the match dragged on. She balanced lightly and well on her feet as she waited patiently. And yet, she considered the match no less than Spock did.

He lunged, but it ended up being a feint, drawing Saavik in when she had intended to wait and strike. She quickly twisted at the waist, turning her block into an attack at Spock's back with the bludgeon end. He spun away himself, but not in time to avoid the whole blow. Her practice lirpa left a smear of green chalk on his uniform shirt, giving her the point. She struck once more and then a third time, but couldn't get inside his reach again. She kept him on the defensive though, not giving him the chance to press his own attack.

Until with no warning, he switched to the offensive.

Now Saavik had to block as Spock methodically attacked her defenses. She held her own, more than once getting in a blow that made him break off for a second, but the lirpa started to weigh her down and she fell back. Streaks of green chalk marked her one arm and thigh.

Spock stayed patient, pushing her further and further, using the strength in his upper body to make her exert hers, and she began to fail. She held on, not giving in, and then rallied, suddenly lashing out with a kick. Spock jumped back and she pressed her advantage. She swung hard in multiple diagonal slashes and he jumped back again, unable to get past her lirpa. Once more she struck out, but this time in a single strike. It was a mistake, because he waited for it to pass and then lunged. He struck the shaft of her weapon hard with the bludgeon end of his. Her lirpa almost dropped from her hands; the vibration through the shaft into her arms had to be terrible, but she quickly scrambled for a hold even as dropped to her knees.

It was over and Kirk could see by her eyes that she knew it. Spock had waited through her attack, letting her tire out, until she didn't have enough remaining force to stand up against him when he had preserved much of his energy. A sudden strike had been her best chance to get inside his reach, but when she couldn't make it happen, it was over. He struck now at the lirpa raised against him. She shoved against his blade one last time with the last of her strength, but it left her open, unable to get her weapon back up as he used her momentum to push his lirpa high over his head while hers dropped with her tired arms. He swung down for the victory.

Kirk's breath drew in sharply and he heard McCoy do the same. He knew Spock would stop before striking her with even a blunted blade, but the sight of it was still frightening.

And in that second, Saavik charged. Spock was the one left open this time, protected previously by his longer arms now lifted above his head. She kicked off into an extremely tight roll under him, so that she moved underneath his reach into the close space inside. She shot her legs into his wide stance, then split them to knock his feet out from under him. She snapped her lirpa vertically in between his arms, bludgeon end up, so that as he fell, his weapon smashed against the shaft of hers and popped from his hands. He struck the sand and she scrambled to her feet, her blade at his throat, his fallen lirpa behind her and out of his reach.

Spock blinked up at Saavik while her whole expression shifted to something Kirk had never before seen in her.

"I told you once," she said, "years ago, I am very good at fighting."

He stared for a second and an eyebrow flicked up. At the same time, Kirk let out a long breath as he realized that the something in her expression may be new to him, but it was a spark that Spock recognized.

Spock reached up a hand, silently asking her to pull him to his feet. She arched her eyebrows. "Do I look so unwise? You did not concede the match. You were not, by chance, thinking of pulling me off my feet?"

Spock's eyebrow raised again and the corner of his mouth twitched so slightly. "I concede the match," he said and reached up again with his hand. Her head tilted to one side and her own mouth lifted a millimeter, but she took his hand and helped him to his feet.

Bones had been right. With their disciplines, sparring did not let loose hurt tempers through its mock violence. Instead, it brought back the knowledge they had of each other, of their rhythms and thinking. Because it released how they knew each other well in this indirect way, it smoothly slipped past any wary barriers they might still harbor. They connected again. Only a start but still, it was a start.

"Where was my mistake?" Spock asked her.

"You have not changed your tactics. And you assumed I had not either. My opening moves tested this."

"You, however, have changed yours while I was vulnerable in assuming otherwise. It allowed you to create opportunity by plotting my course of action."

She gave a slight shrug in way of explaining the apparent training and experience that had gone on in the time they were apart, but couldn't verbally reply because McCoy was on his feet, applauding.

"Bravo!" he yelled. "Hit him again!"

Registering their audience for the first time, she pulled back, returning the practice lirpa to its case and dusting herself off with a towel. She didn't quite look at Kirk. Spock did the same, although having no problem with meeting Kirk's eyes as he and McCoy crossed over to them. The doctor didn't get far before Rrelthiz and Daniel Corrigan came running up, Rrelthiz forcing herself to match his slower speed. They excitedly waved McCoy over.

Corrigan called out, "Len, we just hit on something big." He grinned.

McCoy hurried over. "What is it?"

The rest of what they said couldn't be heard once he was close enough for them to talk in their normal voices. Kirk wanted to know what had gotten them so excited, but Bones would tell him when it was time.

Spock glanced down at the dirt and green chalk stains marking his skin and tunic. He excused himself to clean up and Saavik started to do the same when Kirk asked her to stay.

Now when she looked at him, it was with the same resolution to face the situation that she had with the Kobayashi Maru years ago. She remembered that their confrontation over her behavior with Valeris was unresolved. He wasn't sure she would through the haze of Phase II.

He had told Jdehn the truth: Saavik was no follower. Neither was he. He had no problem confronting her on the topic and she was the same. She had raised questions he had not yet answered within himself. Too much else needed his attention. More important things and they still did.

So he said something else. "You probably heard Spock and I are helping investigate what's happening here."

Of course, if she was surprised that he didn't bring up Valeris, she didn't show it. "Yes, sir. And if there is any way I can be of help, I would like to do so in any way I can."

"Good, because we need your help. Starting now." He activated the tricorder, but didn't offer it to her. Yet. "If I asked you to consider anyone -- _anyone_ -- who would hate all of you so much to do all of this, who would it be? Don't consider logic or opportunity, just anyone, Saavik. Who do you think of first?"

"Besides each other--" The bitter words surprised him, especially because they didn't break her control. Her tone stayed even and calm as she continued to speak, even with the wealth of painful years in what she said. "-- the Romulans who would wish no physical evidence existed for their actions on the colony. There is also those Vulcans who have been unable to accept us. However, their causing multiple deaths seems unlikely when it violates Surak's teachings in addition to their having other means at their disposal for expressing their disapproval. Including removing us from Vulcan."

He filed that away despite her caveat at the end. He had seen people in legitimate pain do desperate things. Things they normally wouldn't do.

She thought for a second and what had risen behind her eyes stayed there. "I am not unaware of any party in the Federation that knows of us and the colony. However, it is clearly a possibility and enough animosity still holds against the Romulan Empire that such people would move against us. As we have recently seen with the Klingon peace talks."

He had never given much thought to what prejudice she had been dealt, a Romulan in the Federation. He did now.

It made him quiet for a second before handing over the tricorder he had picked up from the bench. "Part of the investigation is into the medical team and trying to find out who treated any of you before the disease."

"My records for Starfleet and Vulcan are available, Captain. I will request you be given access to them if the medical team has not already done so."

"They have, but we're making sure no one has removed something they don't want us to find. Could you review that list and tell me which healers have ever treated you?"

As she read it over, he said, "We've already checked to see if any of them came onboard the _Aerfen_. We haven't found any record of it, but your ship is checking into it on their end."

She didn't look up. Maybe deliberately. "It is no longer my ship, Captain."

_I know how that feels._ He said gently. "I think they'd disagree with you."

Her eyes flicked away from the tricorder, as if thinking over what he said, and then went back. "That would be very generous of them."

Talking about them reminded him of something else. "They also certainly demonstrate the border patrol mentality."

Saavik asked him, "Could you be more specific, sir?"

"They're very... informal. Even irreverent at times." He explained some of the things they had said, from the orphans' party to calling her Savage.

She came back with something just as surprising. "Interesting. Sir, did Captain Hunter eventually ask you a difficult question?"

"Stuart did. Why?" He suddenly came very close to snapping his fingers as things fell into place. "They distracted us so that when the hard question came, we weren't prepared. We couldn't fake a reaction. I've pulled that same maneuver myself."

_I can't believe I fell for it._

"I admit, sir, I cannot see what information or observation the _Aerfen _crew needed to make with all of you.""

"To find out why Spock and the rest of us where here to see you after--" Just in time, he caught himself. "Valeris' letters."

Saavik handled that well, only nodding slowly.

"I wonder, did Hunter really plan this? She looked surprised when Stuart spoke up. Maybe the other three decided this on their own."

"Captain Hunter does encourage us to take our own initiative. She has gone so far as to have each of the bridge crew command the ship during skirmishes, in the event she is killed in battle and we must assume command."

"She's done that?" It sounded like Hunter and her ways of shaking up Starfleet. And Command would choke if they heard junior officers took the _Aerfen_'s captain's seat.

"Yes, sir. So the latter situation you described is quite possible." She got that apologetic look Vulcans did. "However, they should not have questioned you as they did. I regret such actions took place, Captain."

"You're one of their crew. I'd have done the same."

Which was why, despite Hunter saying he was stealing her officer, she had gladly signed Saavik's transfer. The Border Patrol was no place for a real science officer. Hunter, who had given up her adored sciences, knew that better than anyone. Saavik was limited on _Aerfen._ She had needed to get back onboard a deep space explorer.

If only Valeris and Cartwright hadn't ruined it for her. Especially now when... she might never see active duty again.

"Perhaps you did so then?" she asked, breaking into his thoughts. "On Spock's behalf. It might have served as a catalyst for their questioning."

_She never has a problem with saying what's on her mind_. "Maybe I did, unconsciously. Either way, it was a good thing or we may never have found out what really happened."

Saavik took this as a compliment on behalf of the _Aerfen_. "They are a good crew, Captain."

He thought about when he and Hunter, so long ago, had loved one another. "Yes, they are." He swallowed, and for want of something to say, as well as still wanting it to happen, he brought up Jdehn. "Saavik, I don't know if you have made plans."

Her eyebrows arched as if she questioned whether this was going to be something positive.

"Jdehn is shipping out tomorrow and she needs an experienced crew. She could use your help."

She didn't argue. She merely answered as matter of fact as if he had asked what was her name. "She would never ask, Captain. And I would never accept."

"Perhaps you should offer."

He could actually see the mask come down over her face, but he wasn't giving up that easily. "Saavik, I know that on your colony, grouping together meant you might not survive. But that was then and we're talking about here. Saavik, _think_." That was damned insulting to a Vulcan, but he had to shake those barriers if he was going to get past them. "Your survival now means grouping together. Stay apart and you make it easier for whoever's attacking you."

He finished with the only other thing that would make her take notice. "Put the past behind. I know it's not easy. I just had to do something similar. But as Spock reminded me, it's the type of job Starfleet expects you to do. It's why Hunter put you in that captain's chair."

She... watched him. He didn't know what she was thinking (_Would Spock?_), but he knew this. She was _thinking_.

She handed over his tricorder as if he had never brought up the other issue.

_But she heard me. I got through to her that much._

"Of the healers on this list, I have only seen Sorel and Sa'd prior to my inception to the disease. It was necessary for me to meld once with Sorel, after Spock's _fal tor pan_. Because of..." She hesitated and Kirk wondered if she would actually go against her nature of speaking her mind. But in the next second, she said, "On Genesis, it was once necessary for me to meld with Spock. Being opened to his mind when his mental presence was barren, the healers were concerned I may have suffered damage."

He had never heard about this -- that it was necessary for her to meld with Spock. Or that she may have suffered consequences from it. Which meant it wasn't really his business to know; if it had been, they would have told him.

Saavik was saying, "Sa'd performed my routine physical while I was stationed on Vulcan, and T'Ahiyya was the nurse involved."

"Can you think of anything else?" Her eyebrows drew together. "Saavik, if someone's guilty, they have to be found out. If they're innocent, it won't hurt to say what you're thinking."

She nodded. "I agree, Captain. I do not hesitate for that reason. It is merely a minor point, and speaking of it may cause a damaging misperception. However, as you have requested all details, you should know Mal'shik was with Healer Sorel when he examined me. Sorel dismissed him for other duties."

"Mal'shik was one of you." She still didn't like being lumped together with them, but she nodded. "So he worked closely with Sorel."

And Mal'shik was one of the first to get sick and die.

"As I said, it is a minor point, perhaps insignificant. However, it must be noted and if Sorel is innocent, it will stay insignificant."

He rolled this over in his mind, putting pieces together. Sorel was tied closely from the beginning to at least one victim and he had treated Saavik. Sa'd and T'Ahiyya not only treated her, but went to the orbital station as well, right before the problems started happening on Jdehn's _Independence_.

Except Saavik didn't get the disease as early as Spock's _fal tor pan_. She didn't get it for years. So if it was Sorel, he hadn't infected her then, when he had possibly infected the others like Mal'shik. Had Sorel or Sa'd been offworld? Saavik never reported coming back to Vulcan during the time in question.

He asked her again to be safe, but the answer stayed the same.

"Thank you, Saavik. I don't have to tell you, every bit of information helps. We did an initial check on the medical team and now we have these new details. Someone is getting information on the Romulans--"

She didn't react. He had wondered if she would. After all, she somehow had contact with a Romulan agent. He still mulled that one over.

"-- which leaves us with going through the Vulcans again."

"As well as the information from the _Aerfen_."

He nodded. "Right."

As if responding to a cue, he heard, "Captain!"

Plenty of heads turned in Uhura's direction as she bustled across the yard, white teeth flashing in a smile of good news. McCoy, Daniel, and Rrelthiz turned back to each other, and after gazes of curiosity, disapproval, or acceptance of alien behavior, so did any Vulcans.

But it wasn't news from the _Aerfen_. Catching her breath, Uhura still managed a broader smile. "Archernar."

He went to grab her tricorder, but almost dropped it when it banged against his. Saavik rescued Uhura's and immediately glued herself to it.

"He found something this fast?" Kirk exclaimed. He had the evidence of Archernar's success right in front of him, but the speed of the reply was still surprising.

"It's like we guessed. He said he had ties to this for awhile. He just had to pull on the right strings."

Saavik interrupted, her head jerking sharply up from the tricorder. "Commander, where is the data? This is only the communication acknowledging it is being sent."

"Oh, we have it," Uhura reassured her. "I wouldn't come out here without it."

"With all due respect, I requested to see the data first."

_With all due respect_... that was a sign of an upcoming Vulcan storm.

"I know, but I bumped into Spock on my way here. Literally. I explained that I was bringing it to you and he said it had to go to T'Pau. Sorry, Saavik, but he outranks you. And it does make more sense this way."

Saavik grew stiff. "Did Spock's order specifically include not giving the data to me?"

"_Captain_ Spock's order?" Uhura reminded her. "Actually, yes. Does that matter?"

Clearly, it did. Saavik gave a fast, "If you will excuse me, sirs." and rushed off before they replied. Kirk wanted to stop her, but he recognized something Uhura hadn't. Saavik would never simply forget to use Spock's rank anymore than Spock ever forgot Kirk's. The fact she hadn't used it was the same as Spock calling him Jim. It meant this was personal.

So either McCoy's getting them to talk was about to work or the step they had just made was going to be blown to bits. Either way, he had to stay out of it.

Someone else, though, jumped in. Up ahead, Arik suddenly appeared, calling out for Saavik to wait. She stopped, her discipline extending that far, but with her bearing that tight, she was forcing patience in listening to Arik.

Kirk especially wanted to interrupt now, but he had just lectured her on opening up to Jdehn and everyone else. Which was more important? Giving Arik his chance to say... whatever it was he wanted to tell Saavik or letting Saavik play out whatever she wanted with Spock?

Arik leaned into her, his hand gestures as emphatic as the expression on his face. She looked like she was about to bolt off when something made her half-turn and really listen.

Kirk couldn't help his curiosity. Who could? _What _does _he want with her?_

Arik talked a little more, and even at this distance, his earnestness was clear. He took a step close to her and she unbelievably jerked back. Hurt spread all over his open face and he took another step. She recoiled.

_Come on, Saavik! Don't run! Whatever it is he wants._

But she instead backed away with a short reply and left him. As if she was threatened.

"What was that all about?" Uhura asked, watching them.

Kirk had almost forgotten her. "I don't know."

For the second time in less than half an hour, McCoy gave an imperious, "Jim! Come over here!"

"You'd better go, Captain. I'm headed for T'Pau's office. I was only stopping to let you know about Archernar's information, and I don't want to keep them waiting."

Uhura left as he went over to where Bones stood with the other two doctors.

"They were right, Jim. We got a bit of a breakthrough, at least maybe in tracking down whoever's responsible. Tell him, Daniel."

Corrigan said, "Rrelthiz found it, let her tell it."

The throat sac on Rrelthiz's neck rumbled a bit in excitement. "While checking over the Phase II tests from Saavik, I ran a comparison against the other patients. Every single one of them had the exact same test results. No variance in any of the patients! None! What disease acts like that? Even manufactured?"

McCoy answered, "None, Jim. At least none that any of us know of. A disease acts differently to some extent per person. Even the first and third stage of this one varied with each patient. But Phase II lasted the same length of time and had the same exact symptoms to the same degree for everyone. Not even one minor difference in them."

Kirk grabbed the padd, using his tricorder as a table for it. The data didn't mean much to him, but he could see every chart, ever numerical readout was the same for each person. "What do you think it means?"

Rrelthiz replied, "I do not know, but I am taking this to Sorel and the others. We will hear their thoughts on it." She was off, waylaying a Vulcan orderly for a communicator to reach the rest of the medical team.

McCoy waited for her to be out of earshot. "Daniel, I know one thing. It looks like someone other than the medical team or the Vulcans is behind this. Maybe not even the Romulans."

"Why, Bones?"

"Because Vulcans, not to mention physicians, and unfortunately the Romulans know how pon farr varies. At least the Romulans from the colony would and anyone else who has their records. They'd put that variation into Phase II. Obviously the disease is strictly scripted, but until now, whoever wrote that script and the patient's systems put in the body's natural ability to react uniquely to a disease. But this... it looks like someone new to pon farr. They're reading a text book version about the syndrome and putting it into play. They have no personal experience."

"That's the other way it backfired on them," Daniel said. "If the disease is scripted in the same way for each phase, you can rely on the patient's body putting in a natural variance. It would know how for the other Phase I and III."

"For example, Jim, say you were infected with Phase I, and it passed on the order to feel dizzy to your body. Your body has experience with feeling dizzy so it would call on that experience."

"And if you acted dizzy," Kirk said, "you would act differently to some degree because of natural differences between us."

"Exactly," Daniel answered. "But it backfires with Phase II because of the patients' ages. None of them ever went through pon farr. Their bodies don't know how to act. So not only is the disease written in a textbook fashion, giving them no variance, their bodies can't add it either."

"That means, Jim, someone inexperienced. Vulcans would know, the Romulans from Hellguard would know, or someone like Amanda and Daniel would know. Or someone like me, a doctor whose had Vulcan patients with it."

Daniel asked, "Hate to play devil's advocate, but maybe they only picked the one scenario because they didn't care about adding variance per victim?"

Kirk added, "Or couldn't it be a younger Vulcan who hasn't gone into pon farr themselves?"

But Daniel didn't think so. "Now I'm giving up being devil's advocate. All Vulcans study pon farr so they're better prepared for it."

Kirk thought of that other half of himself, split from him by the transporter accident. If he had known it would happen, he'd have studied it so he was better prepared.

Daniel was chewing on his lower lip. "Although it might explain it being such a textbook case."

_That looks like Sorel and Sa'd are ruled out. They're old enough and they would have seen plenty of patients. Unless they're only involved in infecting people. Or they just made a big mistake._

"Bones," he asked. "You said something a few days ago about Phase II only has male symptoms."

"Right. It's another mistake in the disease's script."

"Males and females have different symptoms?"

"Different hormones, different symptoms. To some extent anyway. Humans are no different, Jim." McCoy let out a big breath. "Who knows? Maybe we didn't discover something that big after all. If Daniel is right, it could still be the Romulans or their Hellguard records or Vulcans or doctors, and they just didn't care about variance."

"I think you did find something, Bones." Kirk looked down at the padd. _We just have to figure out how it fits._


	19. Chapter 19

Spock left the shower. He originally had planned to simply wash up and clean off the grime from the spar. With the arrival of Archernar's files, however, he could be with T'Pau and others for some time to go over the data. So he had stepped into the small changing room off of the exercise field to bathe and change into a clean uniform. He ignored the towel hanging next to the shower stall for those species that used the water jets. The desert made up too much of Spock's makeup to use them, so the towel had no purpose.

"_Spock._"

The steel used in his name was his only warning. Saavik came through the door with such force, the mechanics couldn't open fast enough. She had to twist her shoulders to enter, barely giving him time to snatch the now very important towel and wrap it around his waist.

"You had no right to commandeer that information!"

He should have known Saavik would come after him once she spoke with Uhura. And she had come right afterwards. She had cleaned off the chalk and the worst of the dirt, but she still wore her exercise clothes which still showed traces of their spar. Her skin was flushed from the exertion and the sun, and it emphasized her intensity. Especially the tossed hair and hard stare in her eyes.

Maybe his lapse in reason was why he so loftily dismissed her. "Saavik, you can see it is necessary for you to leave while I dress."

"On the contrary," she argued. "I have seen you nude before."

His lessons at Gol gave him the ingrained control to keep a blush from striking his body from head to toe. She unknowingly tested it further when her focus became that of the scientist, most likely noticing the differences in his body since Genesis.

She saw his discomfort -- it was impossible to miss -- and the hardness drained from her expression before she turned her back. "I ask your pardon. I did not intend to be rude but to state a fact."

But she didn't leave the room.

"The information belonged to me, Spock. You had no right to take possession of it."

He wondered how he could have forgotten her temper -- or her sometimes devastating honesty. He was not sure which this was.

Of course, Starfleet officers often couldn't afford modesty except for the same amount of privacy she gave him now. So her staying with her back turned wasn't that unusual. Except she _could_ leave. The discussion _could_ wait. At least he thought it could.

_It is not as if she was any more comfortable with this when I first saw her at the fal tor pan_.

He quickly donned pants and his uniform tunic, smoothing it into place. From buried memory came the phantom touch of her hands on Genesis as she removed his robe.

Soothing... warm... both easing away the turmoil and igniting fire.

The changing room was only meant for one person. It put her close, the heat of her presence brushing against his senses.

He made himself ignore it and deliberately didn't put on his uniform jacket. He didn't want to give his memory another opportunity to bring back her touch. This was _not_ the time. "The information, Saavik, is in the same hands it would have eventually reached if you had received it. So I do not see your argument."

_Was that a lie? _he wondered. Because he did know.

"I wanted information from the files. However, while it is important to me, it is of an insignificant nature and does not warrant my disturbing T'Pau's offices by requesting it. You have now made that disturbance necessary."

"What information?" he asked.

"Birth dates."

The answer was so unexpected, he waited a second for her to give the real reason. But she was serious.

_Could I have been wrong in assessing her intentions?_ No, she could not have changed that much, not in something so fundamental. So he put aside her answer, out loud and in his own mind.

She stiffened at this second dismissal. "You think it unimportant? To never know something as basic as this about yourself? To always give an approximate?"

"Not unimportant, no. However, I doubt a minor point can bear such a priority."

"Indeed? Then let me ask you a question, Spock." She dared at glance over her shoulder, most likely noticing a lack of any sort of dressing noises. When she saw he was fully clothed, she faced him. "How old are you?"

He stopped. He did not know. He could never know at what age he left Genesis, if he had lost years or gained them. Hadn't he only recently remembered that he had based her age on her size... a size created by malnutrition? When she could properly eat, she had grown taller than expected for her age group. He had always wondered if he had gauged wrong, but he had no way to know. The usual tests based on epidermal, organ, and bone growth were equally vague since they were equally affected by the damage done to her body by violence and lack of food.

The same way they wouldn't work for him. Genesis' rapid growth and failure exploded the usual signs age had on the body. When people asked, he gave them the age he would be if he had not died on the _Enterprise._

But he did not _know_.

He was a Vulcan and a scientist, both marked by great curiosity and a life time of seeking out knowledge, including about himself. And he did not know the simple fact of his age. It was minor, they both agreed on that point, but if he had a chance to find out... ?

"I will get the birth dates for you and the others."

She nodded, but she did not yield. "I prefer access to the full files."

"For information other than your ages?"

"Yes."

His voice grew hard. He didn't doubt that she wanted their ages, but it was not what drove her. "For the name of your Romulan parent."

She said nothing, but her whole bearing smoldered. Outside, something flew through the path of the sun and it cast a sharp, winged shadow over her face.

"To seek revenge on him or her in the time you have left. It is exactly the reason why I gave the information to T'Pau. Did you plan to share this information with others? Is the common goal to use your last year seeking and killing your Romulan parents?"

"If the goal exists, it is our private matter and not yours."

"It is very much a matter which involves me. In getting the agreement of the rescue team that night on Hellguard, I stated you and the others were Vulcans and not the feral killers you appeared to be. My word was given. Since then, you and the others have agreed to abide by the ideals of the Federation. _Your_ word is given as a Vulcan and a Starfleet officer. Go back on that word, and all of you dishonor mine and discredit your own."

She recoiled at the reminder of her oath, both to Starfleet and as a follower of Surak. Saavik never dealt in half-measures. When she promised herself, she promised herself fully and it went against her nature to pick and choose when she'd follow it and when it meant nothing. That struggle in her nature tightened the skin around her eyes and mouth, but she still did not yield. "It remains _our _decision. It is not for you or anyone else to make it for us."

"Perhaps." He wasn't getting any further with that argument. What little progress he could make with it showed in the war that was waging in the depths under her control. But he wouldn't yield anymore than her. Somehow, she had to see reason.

He paused. "Would you throw away all you have built?"

"It will be thrown away for me when I die in Phase III. I have no family. If you believe I do a dishonor with this action, at least no one will be affected by it."

"Except the people who argued on behalf of all you."

"You believe we are ungrateful for the life you and the _Symmetry_ team gave us?"

"I state that I disapprove of any attempt to murder the Romulans involved with Hellguard. It will not bring you any peace -- or have you forgotten when you returned to Hellguard?"

The Romulan in charge of the weapons project: Saavik's attempt to murder him caused the man to commit suicide, destroying all information with him. It could have meant the end of Earth.

He pressed the point. "I see no justification on how murdering another will bring any peace for Hellguard's victims. It will not bring their katras home, and it does not return anything you and the others have lost."

The strengthening sunlight began heating the barren room. The _shavokh_ or whatever bird had flown by earlier was of course gone. But the compound outside gathered more and more non-Vulcan passersby, trying to get done whatever they needed outside before heat made it impossible. They threw stripes of shadow in the room as they passed the window.

One such gray bar of shade passed over her face, alternately covering and revealing each side. She walked to the window and stared out.

_Because she cannot face me with her argument? Do I make progress in having her see the truth?_

But what she said was, "Restitution does not always have rewards. It simply must be done. _Justice_ must be done."

"How do you rise above Thieurrull by acting with the same violence as your Romulan parent?" She kept silent. At length, he said, "I once had your acceptance."

Softly, she spoke, "Are you saying I no longer have yours?"

_Is that what I meant?_ "You ask if I put any conditions on our friendship."

Even more softly: "I cannot ask it because I would need to know. Do we have a friendship?"

And just as delicately, he risked answering, "I would prefer to believe so."

She did not turn or even look all the way over her shoulder. She did not need to when her words and her head half-turning, even in silhouette, opened her to him. "...As would I."

"Then why can it not be so? We each abandoned it too easily before."

More earnest than when she had demanded those files, she pleaded with him with such softness to understand. "I already explained to you. You and your friendship were a gift I could not keep. I did not believe it was my right to fight for it when you supposedly ended it."

"Do not say that."

"It is the truth."

"Is it? A gift cannot be taken back by the giver. It can only be rejected by the receiver." He picked up his abandoned towel and dirty uniform, tossing them down the clothing chute with, perhaps, more force than necessary. It made him take a steadying second to center himself. If they argued or if he let old hurts dictate his actions, they'd lose each other forever.

With calm, came clarity. About everything the moment held.

It wasn't only about his taking Archernar's files, but how different they were since they had parted. How much had changed and what had stayed the same. Trying to keep her from seeking revenge was part of a larger issue.

Getting her back. Before she was lost for good.

The most important thing that had stayed the same was that he could talk to her -- if he tried. They could salvage their relationship -- or build a new one -- if they _tried_.

With the growing heat outside, the room's air conditioning came on. The system did not know what species occupied it. It did not have the sensors that a regular hospital room had to make that judgment. In their silence, the almost inaudible circulation became a distant irritant on the ear. He touched the panel and adjusted it for Vulcans. It silenced.

They had no need for the air conditioning anyway. The temperature in the room was pleasant. Amazing how quickly his body had returned to being chilled in the standard Earth's temperatures. The warmth in the room felt good.

He now kept his uniform jacket off for a different reason. He did not want a full uniform causing an issue of rank between them. He used the fact they had said nothing in the past moment to restart.

"If a gift can be taken back by the giver, Saavik, then I could say the same of the gift of your friendship. I quote what you said to Nogura in the beginning of the Hellguard mission. 'I speak for myself. I always have.'"

Nogura had been nonplused. It had been interesting to see.

"It was the truth," Spock continued. "Underage, you had more life experience than many and no need for an adult figure to pose as family in making decisions for you. Advice, teaching, those you asked for and heeded, but you were quite correct when you said what you did to Nogura. If for no other reason than your needing me only temporarily as a mentor, I could say my association with you was a gift I could not keep. And yet, I will try."

Her lips parted, but no words came. They did not part to speak, but from hearing what he had last said.

"I tire of your talking about a debt, Saavik." In fact, it was the worst thing she could say. "Should I constantly attribute our association to my debt to you? It began with you saving my life on Hellguard. That is one."

"That is different," she argued. "We have taken a tangent from the point of this discussion."

"We need to take this tangent. And Genesis marks the second debt that I owe you."

"There is a difference between preventing death and giving someone a life."

"The fact that you just saved me from Valeris' retribution is three."

"You are not listening!"

"No, I am not," he said sharply, and it struck him that his tone bordered on when he had confronted Valeris in the _Enterprise_'s Sickbay. Why? Because he could not take any more betrayal? Saavik did not betray him by refusing any association unless she owed it to him, but it was _wrong_.

So he was sharp. "Your argument is invalid. You had need of me, I do not dispute it. I stayed your mentor and teacher. Others were found to foster you, to teach you more or at least provide a safe atmosphere while you learned. They had little hold on you, but you preferred it that way."

"Again, I seem ungrateful."

"No, self-sufficient. You are who you are. Your formative years were spent too independently to change." He stopped as a flash of memory unearthed itself. "Do you remember what you once said to Dr. McCoy when he asked how you labeled us? You said, 'I am Saavik and he is Spock. If it makes no sense to others, it suits us well.'"

Some of the soberness fell away. "I remember."

"It explains very well all you gave me. Besides my life and I do not undermine the value of that --" He hesitated, searching for words. He never intended discussing all this, but it suddenly was vital they did. "I had need of you as much as you had need of me. You gave me as much peace as anyone else. I learned to put aside my battles over my dual nature because yours were so much more considerable. You also gave me the unique world where I was Spock and I did not need to be anything more. No more Vulcan, no more human. That by itself is of immeasurable value. I always thought it equal to what I gave you."

She spoke as if she repeated something she didn't dare believe. "Valeris said you told Captain Kirk that I brought out the hybrid in you."

"That is true. Both that I said it and what it means. If we are to start again and move on in our friendship -- and I believe we will (_I want us to do so._) -- we must put all debts behind us and start from here." He took a breath. "Are you willing to do so?"

No more people walked by. The sun threw the room in brilliant light.

She stared at him until she looked down and away.

_I demanded too much of her too soon._

Especially with no warning. If he was lucky, they'd have another chance. If not... she was lost to him.

He turned away to leave, uttering an apology. He was out the room's door wondering if he would ever get another opportunity with her and how he could do better if he did. The door opened behind him and she was out in the hall. Steadfast. Unyielding. And this time, what she would not give up was the chance to speak with him.

"You always had a propensity to lecture."

No flowery words. No overblown compliment to get him to stay. She was still so Saavik.

He took a step closer, pleased to hear her talk about how well she knew him. "Perhaps."

Saavik said, "You might have simply asked: Are we friends or not?"

"And are we?" He found he actually was on edge, waiting.

It was the fact that she didn't even need to say Yes that gave more of an answer than if she had. Because what she said was: "We... should have had this conversation about debts before."

He took another step towards her. "Perhaps we might have if events had not-- kept us apart."

"Driven us apart." A weight fell on them. "Valeris."

"... Yes."

She turned away and the weight visibly pushed down on her. Unbelievably, she talked. Honest, open talking as he had done. Spock drew in a quiet breath. He had not pushed too hard after all.

"Arik came to me," she said in a near whisper. "Immediately prior to my coming here."

Spock tried to keep the driving curiosity out of his voice, but the image of both Arik and Jdehn talking about how much he wanted to find Saavik stayed vivid behind his eyes. "Indeed?"

"Yes. He wishes to learn a measure of the Vulcan disciplines. He seeks to control his fears and those demons that have held him in the past years. He... asked me to teach him."

Why should that be a relief? "Interesting. He spoke to me of believing he would make his past choices differently concerning learning anything of Vulcan. He did not, however, say he wished to learn any of it now."

"He believes I am a preferable teacher as I not only come from a similar background, but made the choices on my own terms. He said it first occurred to him when we spoke at the restaurant on his arrival."

Spock lifted a wry eyebrow. It was the same part of her nature that he had just referred to moments ago.

"He refers to my not taking the gen scan, of course."

"Of course. As well as other choices. You agreed, naturally."

"No. I refused him."

Both eyebrows shot up as Spock unknowingly jumped to the same conclusion Kirk had earlier. "Saavik, this is not the same as struggling for survival as an individual. Arik seeks you as a mentor. How can you refuse what was taught to you?"

He almost echoed Kirk in saying that if she could not do what was right as a Vulcan, she needed to still follow her oath as an officer. Except, she turned back, and it brought home the fact she had not faced him since bringing up the issue. Something ravaged her voice from deep where she tried to control it. "When he asked me, I might have said yes. Only he... settled into my personal space. He has a habit of it, he did it repeatedly. It is Valeris' habit."

Spock nearly swallowed. Yes, it was Valeris'. A habit of entreaty when she needed strength and drew it from nestling into his presence. Of needing reassurance that she was favored. The same reasons she had most likely done it with Saavik. The same reasons Arik most likely did.

It hadn't meant Valeris could be trusted. It hadn't meant she wouldn't hurt or betray.

Which is exactly what had crossed Saavik's mind when Arik did as Valeris once had.

Spock forced himself to speak. "It does not mean that Arik will be the same as Valeris."

"_I know_."

He thought he heard her whisper _No more strays,_ but he could not be sure.

The betrayal scorched her voice more than before and it was a visible effort to control it again. "However, until I can be with him and hear words and experience actions similar to hers--"

She shook her head, slowly as if with regret. "--I am not the teacher for him. I did not discourage his intentions, however. I have promised him another teacher."

The challenge was in her eyes. No, not challenge, a simple question to the one person who understood what she was going through. Could he take on what she could not?

He could. He had the discipline and maturity not to allow himself to be so affected by what had happened. But he did not say he would. "We are illogical."

Shared, the failure was still a failure. But neither of them was alone to face it.

The line of her shoulders relaxed. "I will find Arik a teacher."

"We must do more. We must overcome our wrong behavior."

She silently agreed as her eyes moved to a spot over his shoulder. "Valeris..."

So she did not look away out of discomfort with him.

She started again. "I gave a deposition for her tribunal."

"I did as well."

"She-- she has refused to see me."

"...She has refused to see anyone. I tried as well."

Her eyes stayed on that same spot, but they changed in expression. Haunted. He didn't know why, but he thought he knew what she was thinking. It couldn't be because he knew her so well. They had been apart for so long.

But he knew because he had caught himself with the same expression. "Saavik... did something happen when you had Valeris agree not to press charges against me?"

She nodded, slowly and only once.

And now that Valeris would not speak to her, Saavik could never apologize or explain. She could not defend what she had done or admit her guilt. Whatever had happened would remain between them as the last moment they had ever shared.

"I understand," he said.

He did. His forcing the meld on Valeris would now be between them because _he_ could never speak to her again.

Saavik knew. It was like their failure with Arik. The guilt was shared.

"Saavik," he asked. With all that had just happened, why shouldn't he? "I will not be overdramatic again. Are we friends?"

Her eyes took on a special light that spread through her expression like a glow. "I would be pleased to think so," she nearly whispered.

So would he.

He wanted to ask if she would still pursue tracking down her Romulan parent. Was it too soon? He merely had to tell the authorities what she planned to do and she'd be blocked from the information forever. But he wanted her to make the decision for herself.

As she had with Nogura.

One of Sarek's aides came up and apologized for the interruption. "T'Pau has finished reviewing the files you sent her, Spock. She is calling for an assembly of everyone involved where she will present the contents."

He found Saavik's eyes and held them.


	20. Chapter 20

For the first time since their rescue by the _Symmetry_ team, Hellguard's survivors were all together in one room.

No. Not all.

Eleven were dead from the disease. Ten more were in stasis in an attempt to escape death. That made only twelve survivors out of the original thirty-three.

Only twelve. And some of them so weak from Phase III that they could not sit up on their own. They had insisted on being here anyway.

Someone might think the missing twenty-one were easy to overlook. After all, more than a dozen seats were filled in amongst the tiered, raked seating that slanted downwards to the empty lecture floor. That someone, however, would be wrong. Even with their years since Hellguard, the twelve survivors stood out in the crowd. Despite the changes in their faces and all the civilization and disciplines they had adopted, the twelve stood out. For everyone here, viewing the Romulan records was going to be very personal. Very... private. For the survivors, it was -- yesterday. And it showed.

The way they grouped together in little cliques made it worse. Somehow, Saavik had inherited Jdehn, Mekhai, and Arik despite the fact she never asked for them. But they still kept a distance from her. From where she stood on the floor in front of the first row of seats, they clumped together a few rows up and all the way against the far wall. Arik refused to look at her, and when he did accidentally, he looked wounded.

He had every right to be.

All the other hybrids filled in seats with their families against the wall closest to the hall's entrance. A'kornora, halfway up in the stadium seating with her shaggier bangs grown into a peak between her eyebrows and a small braid behind her right ear, showed she was part of the E'oDq province now.

E'oDq province: T'Pren's family lived in that region. Saavik had already searched the faces here, but she didn't see anyone related to the Vulcan woman who had cared for her on Hellguard. Although, with the scant images she had of them and their one brief conversation, she didn't know them well enough to find them.

Kf'iskjyk, her hair slicked back, wore the short, thick tunic and reinforced pants of a khu'unla handler, the great beasts descended from Vulcan's nomadic time. Sajjan started to stand and had to take the hand of a younger female who was barely more than a girl. Eitan sat in the front row next to an elderly lady that had the same eyes as him. They both wore robes in ShiKahr's style, the style most often seen offworld. Just like Micar, three seats away in the front row.

Saavik gave Micar a wide berth and he did the same with her.

That put her in the middle of the two groups, alone, separated from the one side by not taking the genetic scan and by being Vulcan from the other.

Yet, she was still a part of both of them.

She had always struggled with that fact. They all had. Life took them blissfully away from each other down new paths and allowed the illusion of putting each other behind. Life brought them back together now.

Life and, as always, the Romulans.

No one but another Vulcan would recognize the tension seeping through the chamber and trying to take control of each body in it. It formed a testament to Surak's teachings that these people kept from giving into a strangling darkness. But it took a hold; no mortal could avoid some affect.

As Surak would have said: the cause was sufficient.

This wasn't a classroom in the Academy. The stone walls, smoothed from the rock brought from Vulcan's mountains, ran gray with only mere glimpses of red. The bench seats, including their high backs, and the lecture floor were all the same material, only the dark seat cushions and the lighting from high in the ceiling gave any color and warmth. Every line in the place spoke of somber importance. It wasn't meant to be pretty. It was meant to focus the mind and senses on what was being discussed. Chambers like these were reserved for when a number of Vulcans must meet to hear or decide on issues impacting them as a people.

Tonight, they met to at last know the Romulans' minds. Finally, they'd get answers. Why had the deadly Hellguard program ever been started? Who in the Empire bore the responsibility? Was it the same talons that reached into the present through the disease to wipe out the last trace the colony had existed?

Or was it simply more torture to finish the project?

After decades since the first Vulcan was captured, they were going to _know_.

They would learn one other thing and that was what made the tension grow, trying to choke Surak's teachings from them: how much had their lost family and friends suffered? This time, it wasn't a written report. Everyone had been told: as brief as the presentation was, the Romulan files they were about to view contained video recordings made within the project. Now, they would see it for themselves. As Saavik had seen it first hand. As all the survivors had.

Jdehn shifted in her seat, then did it again with even more irritation. She leaned her back against the wall, sprawling on the bench. Mekhai stood behind her like some odd guard, his whole body one strained, silent shout of defiance at the room, and Arik, who darted a quick look at Saavik, sat one row in front of Jdehn. The tension would break them first. With a start, she took in that they wore the same clothes as the night they arrived in the restaurant.

By an odd coincidence, so did she. The same cream, sleeveless simple Vulcan dress, also in ShiKahr's style. Against Mekhai's leather, Jdehn's ship clothes, and Arik's blandness, she was separated again.

By dress and by bearing.

Arik wasn't the only one slipping looks in her direction. In fact, a few Vulcans looked at the four of them and then turned thoughtful, maybe even troubled, gazes away. It happened more often as others came into the room. When Sarek's aide had said T'Pau was gathering everyone involved, it included more than Saavik had first thought. Now Vulcans walked quietly in that had no hybrid survivor with them. In fact, they weren't even related to the eleven hybrids who were already dead from the disease or the ten in stasis.

Dead...

What was the matter with her? Of course that's who they were!

A few Vulcans already seated quietly greeted the newcomers and snatches of what they said reached her ears. These people had lost a friend or family member on Hellguard. It wasn't just the hybrids and their families gathered here, but the people closest to all the lost Vulcans.

Suddenly, every Vulcan, hybrid or full blooded, stood as Sarek, with Spock at his side, entered the chamber. With them came Salok, S'tvan, and every other Vulcan who had dared risk discovery and death by the Romulans in joining the _Symmetry_ on its rescue mission to Hellguard.

Saavik subtly shifted from standing to standing with respect. No matter what ugliness happened about accepting them as Vulcan back then, one fact didn't change. They had risked death to save her life.

Behind them came Amanda, Kirk, Uhura and the medical team, as if the entrances were an orchestrated part of the presentation. At the back of the group came three members of the VSE: Commander Stron and Subcommanders T'Mes and Soluk. Soluk's dark eyes, the same color as his hair and beard, raked the group as if the Science and Exploration team had been sent as a security measure. But T'Mes touched her husband Stron's paired fingers and took a comfortable position by the door as if they merely had been sent to serve to the people gathered in the hall. She nodded in easy greeting to Saavik as did her husband.

S'tven's voice reached her ears, the haggard words snatching her attention despite his low pitch. " Are you certain you want to know?" he asked the Vulcan female next to him. They looked about the same age. "I prefer to believe my son and daughter were spared at least this one pain."

The woman whom he spoke with agreed, but added, "As would I. However, we cannot stay blind to the truth."

"Strong words," he said. "I understand your argument." He didn't want to, that much was sure. She pushed him to be _Vulcan_ in the full sense of the word and it wasn't easy. "Would your argument be different if the truth included he or she being alive?" And his eyes strayed to Saavik.

Her chin came up even though she did not know why. She had no idea what they were talking about or why he -- and now the other female -- looked at her that way.

She didn't get a chance to find out. Arik scrambled in his seat, his long legs again getting tangled as he tried to reach his feet. Saavik turned sharply to where he stared. Komal crossed the floor in his direction. She stopped as if hit by a blow that only emphasized the darkening circles under her eyes and the added angles to her face and body from Phase III. She blinked and then started walking again.

Arik got to his feet and moved the few steps that he could, but he hadn't given himself enough room to make an escape.

Unlike Saavik. It just dawned on her that she had maneuvered her back to the empty lecture floor giving herself a clear path with Komal firmly in her peripheral vision.

The cause was _not_ sufficient now.

Arik's back was to the wall and he gave every appearance of climbing over the seats in a panic if Komal came any closer. Jdehn rolled her eyes and gave an exasperated breath, but she got to her feet and in the path of Arik and his former tormentor.

Someone else made a sound. Someone with a Terran accent who knew how well Vulcan ears worked. "_Saavik..._"

Kirk's eyes drilled into her, expecting her to do what he had suggested. Volunteer, take charge, lead her fellow survivors into a group.

He had no idea of what he was asking.

Komal came up and was about to pass her when Saavik understood exactly what had made Jdehn sound so exasperated. But she had taken an oath to Surak and Starfleet and one to herself: to leave that damned colony behind.

So she turned into Komal's path.

And found, too late, Micar behind Komal and only a few steps away. Headed for her. He could not want anyone else.

Spock, who had begun to move to sit with McCoy and Kirk, caught sight of the tableau on the floor. He began climbing down.

Komal blinked at the sudden obstacle and then moved to step around. Saavik stepped with her and lifted her voice so it would reach Micar.

"No, Komal."

Eyes lifted back to Arik, still visible with Jdehn and now mostly Saavik in the way. They came back. Nobody looking at them could imagine they had once torn each other with their teeth over a scrap of food. And that had been only one of their battles. "I only intended on apologizing to him. I did not know any better in those days, but I was still wrong. These old fears and grievances... It has to stop, Saavik."

"Agreed. I do not argue, Komal, but Arik is not ready."

He had asked her to help him and she had refused.

Kirk watched her and it felt like a weight.

Micar rubbed the stump of his missing finger with his thumb and it felt like a judgment.

Komal looked past her again and Arik shied away from even that little contact. Finally her shoulders dipped in acceptance. "Not today then." She took her eyes off Arik and he sagged in relief. He might have acted differently if he could hear her next words. "But at some point before my death, Saavik."

_Because you need forgiveness_? Didn't they all? Which may be the real reason why Micar reached into the empty space where once his hand was whole. Did he want an apology for what he had lost or to give an apology for what he had done that caused him to lose it?

Kirk started getting out of his seat when Komal moved away, touching Micar's elbow quickly in a quiet sign to give in and take his seat. But Spock was already near Saavik, and the sight of him helped like a balm. He understood.

Although not the Romulans' lasting effect.

That made it a bad time for Spock to follow Micar and Komal's slow progress back to their seats. He watched them the whole way, his head turning in curiosity, but with his eyebrows drawn together. It was probably a misperception caused by the tension, but Micar seem to manage a pace barely a level or two above a shuffle. Phase III was taking its toll.

Or Saavik's conscience was.

Eitan got up and took Micar's elbow with permission. Now the artist managed more strength and rose back to his full height while Eitan glared at her.

She turned her back on them and avoided the eyes on her: Kirk's, Arik's -- Spock was the only one she couldn't avoid because he stepped close to her.

"Saavik."

She cut him off. "I prefer not to discuss it, Spock."

What good would it do? None. No more than their talk on bringing the Romulans to justice.

Her abruptness made him pull back, but he didn't go away. "Saavik... I have never asked specifically what happened on the colony. I understand, in general, the violence. However, Micar--"

Her head swung sharply to look up into his eyes. That by itself interrupted him. He didn't need her tired, heavy words in the air. "Must we discuss every brutality? The ones done to me? The ones I committed?"

His head reared back. Twice she put barriers between them when they had just started talking. First by refusing to promise not to seek revenge on the Romulans. Now in refusing to answer his concern.

He glanced again from Micar to Komal, taking in each Hellguard survivor who now couldn't meet his eyes, then up to Arik and finally back at her.

"No," he said at last. "We do not."

Gratitude didn't cover what it was like that he accepted her.

Subcommander T'Mes took note of something in the hall and came to attention. In a moment, most of the chamber did the same.

T'Pau arrived.

The fact she came herself instead of allowing a subordinate to present the files wasn't lost on any one in the chamber. From the corner of her eye, Saavik saw Jdehn elbow Mekhai to his feet and, still petulant, he rose.

By the time T'Pau crossed to the lecture floor, Spock had moved back to Kirk and McCoy since the seat's around Saavik's were now filled. She considered that a good thing; she wanted to be alone with her reactions. Surrounded by strangers in the dark, she could have that, but not with someone who knew her well seated next to her.

T'Pau did not change the lighting to a spotlight so that only she could be seen. She knew it wasn't necessary. Every eye and ear focused on her.

She didn't keep them waiting. "The files you will witness have been reviewed for authenticity. They have been checked for alterations to ensure they are intact and unedited. This has been done both by their sender and here on our own world."

Incredible! But as Saavik heard a few shift in the audience, she realized they had considered the possibility that the file content would be edited to serve someone's hidden agenda.

"We did this," T'Pau continued, ignoring those who had just revealed their guilt, "not only through our own technicians, but through the expertise of the one who received the message."

Uhura looked startled to be acknowledged, but she recovered quickly and nodded in respect.

"Nyota Uhura, daughter of Kasinda, agreed to coordinate and oversee each phase of the file verification. Through these efforts, what you will see has been verified. The authentication records are here for your review."

It was a brilliant tactic. By picking Uhura, T'Pau had the one person who knew what Archernar's full, intact files were keep an eye to make sure that they didn't change. And Uhura was an outsider. She had no hidden agenda or ulterior motive for altering them. T'Pau had, with one action, wiped out any argument that she had manipulated the files. Saavik marveled at the ingenuity.

With the possibility of duplicity gone, the Elder changed. She wasn't just their leader now. She was still that, she would always be that, but with it grew a personal note. A somber note.

She had bad news.

And she gave it not just because it was her role as Elder to do it, but because she suffered the loss of all those Vulcans too. She probably knew many of them. She might have even been the one to give the orders that sent one of the ships to explore that region of space. Only to lose that ship.

The weight of leadership.

"You need this warning," she said. "Not all our questions are answered. In truth, we may never know these answers."

_Our_ questions... _we_ may never know. Personal, indeed.

"However, our primary focus was to ascertain if the Romulans caused this disease. This question, as well as a few others, are answered. I could have simply reported on them. However, you each have the right to learn them as I have."

She signaled T'Mes and stepped to the side. The lighting now changed. The room darkened and doors slid back on the rear wall revealing a large screen that took up the entire space. It was so big, the figure on it was life size even though he stood.

His clothes were simple but of rich quality. He had autocratic features including the nose and eyes of a hawk, and the light where he was caught in his silver hair. Despite his usual mocking smile being replaced by a serious expression that rivaled T'Pau's, he was clearly Romulan.

Archernar.


	21. Chapter 21

Archernar dipped in a half bow and one corner of his mouth pulled tight. The sight made murmurs break out in the chamber and hard words slid out underneath people's breaths. The worst were the survivors like Saavik.

"The arrogance!"

"He _smiles_."

"He has the nerve to address us as if he did nothing wrong?"

_An understandable, but wrong conclusion_. Saavik never thought they'd make an accusation like that, but she should have.

She held no illusions about what Archernar was: a thief, a conman, a black marketer. Someone who stole from his friends and then sold their own things back to them with a smile.

Her opinion hadn't changed with his last words to her on _Enterprise _or his comparing her worth to the gold coin.

But it also didn't change what he was not. He was not responsible for Hellguard. She never would have saved his life if he had been. His small bow and what looked like a short smile weren't arrogance or mocking the Vulcans who had needed him. What he was trying to do was show he was sincere, but he probably hadn't done that in so long that he couldn't quite pull it off with people who didn't know him. He'd have been better off if he had never attempted it.

She got to her feet to explain. The words _He is not responsible for the crimes against us_ were never spoken, because she found Micar, Komal and A'kornora doing the same thing. They stopped at the sight of each other.

Jdehn snorted. "Told you. The alphas."

They had revealed themselves without intending to do it and without even knowing that's who they were. Now that it had happened, they stood and stared at each other.

The elderly woman seated next to Eitan in the front row slowly got to her feet. With a nod to T'Pau, she said only three words to the crowd.

"Are we Vulcan?"

Anyone who had said something at the first sight of a Romulan dropped their eyes. It was hard to tell who was hit hardest by her words: the Hellguard survivors who tried to live up to half their heritage or the Vulcans born to it and who should have known better.

Mekhai started to laugh, probably ready to say no, he wasn't Vulcan, but the elderly eyes found him and he shuffled under their weight like the people who had muttered about Archernar.

T'Pau spared them by calling for quiet. "The cause for such reaction is sufficient--" echoing Surak's teachings as had already been done, "but it cannot be abused into an excuse. We have much more to endure. Reacting with conclusions based on no facts dishonors us. This is the sender of our information, not the creator of it."

She ordered the presentation be continued.

Archernar straightened from his bow. Saavik had never seen him like this. He could be a guest lecturer at the Academy with the way he spoke and held himself.

"I will not waste your sensibilities by making a greeting. I couldn't make one that didn't mock why we're in contact. This new attack on the survivors is vicious and no one who claims to have any kind of decency can excuse the actions made by my Empire on the Thieurrull colony."

Subtitles translated his words into Vulcan and Federation Basic. Different whispers circulated now, with the Vulcans either chastising themselves for their earlier illogic or approval at what Archernar had said. Kirk asked Spock if this was the same Romulan who had been onboard the _Enterprise_.

Saavik was nonplused at this new somber and sedate Archernar and that only grew stronger with his next words.

"I first started gathering any information I could find when I met one of the survivors."

_She_ was that survivor! He had started collecting data on Hellguard back then? Why?

Fortunately, he didn't name her. Even though quite a few people already knew she was the one who had suggested contacting Archernar, she didn't want that connection to be something _everyone_ knew. It would create too many questions.

And suspicions. If the others from Hellguard lost control over just the sight of him, what would they do if they thought she was connected to him?

"I've spent the years since then using every resource that exists to find everything and everyone still out there. What you will see are the only remaining files. Everything else was destroyed when the task force shutdown the -- first project."

No one could miss his hesitation and Saavik wondered what he had been about to say before he thought better about it. Genetics project? Breeding project? Vulcan project?

Did it matter?

_He found files from the project? Not just the disease!_

"The files are only rough drafts that the scientists made before giving their final presentations. One of the project leaders, a scientist named Thair--"

Saavik kept herself carefully quiet. She remembered Thair. She had survived numerous, terrible beatings because Thair had ordered the Centurions to do it. He had called them lessons.

"--smuggled them out before he deleted everything on his system himself. He knew the Centurion assigned to the data deletion wouldn't miss them because no reference to them was ever made in the colony systems. It's the only reason they still exist. These are the originals and there aren't any copies. I won't even keep a copy of this transmission. You have the right to be the only people that have them. They won't answer all your questions for which I'm sorry, but it's something."

He took a breath. "The immediate question is did anyone in the Empire access any information on the colony or did someone from the colony create the disease. Even indirectly. You're going to see that for yourself and I think you'll trust your own judgment more than any answer I'd give you."

He didn't mean that as an accusation, but it was the truth. And the truth was uncomfortable. It was as bad as Eitan's elderly relative reminding them that they weren't acting as Vulcans.

But Saavik did have to see for herself. Even if he had told her that the Romulans were responsible for the disease and how --

_They must be responsible... who else would know everything they did?_

-- she had to see those files for herself. Everyone in the audience was the same. But curiousity became a double edged sword. She _had_ to see the people who were responsible for Hellguard try to justify themselves. Even though she already knew nothing said in these files would give her what she wanted.

"I've confirmed everything I've just said to you," Archernar said.

She could tell he was finishing. Good, because it didn't matter anymore how well he presented himself. The longer he talked, the longer it became before the files started.

"This is the only data left and I've tracked down anyone who was even remotely part of the project. I only wish I could give you more as easily as I'm handing over this."

He bowed again and no one misunderstood it this time, even if they had allowed themselves such a lapse of control again.

His image faded into black which lasted on the screen for a second before fading into a different Romulan male. He looked like he was in the last years of his youth with gangly limbs, medium brown hair, and a slight brow ridge.

_Fegral._

A healer and maybe the closest thing to a kind heart on Hellguard. Every hurt Thair and the others dealt to Saavik, Fegral had healed. When Thair and the others called her a lab animal (which, in fact, she was), Fegral wanted them treated like regular children. So she'd call him kind hearted... if he hadn't been one of the Romulans behind everything the colony did. No kind heart acted like that.

It was a lesson all the children had known. They liked Fegral, but they had never trusted him. He was one of Them, and They were cruel.

His back was stiff, and his words came out forced and unnatural. He eyed the camera as if it was a superior about to chastise him. "Progress report 155. I will start off by answering the questions in -- in the, the last packet."

The lights in the lab bore down on him and every object in the room. It was stark and bare, not in the way Vulcans kept everything in order, but as if the place was too new to look used by anyone. System screens grew bright and dim behind him, depending if they had new information scrolling by. He touched one and whispered something. The data on the screen flashed off and was replaced with a DNA diagram.

"Uh-- the question about the hybrid children possibly being sterile which -- which happens so often in uh... in hybrids. Thair has focused on this since the beginning. He thinks that sterile children will-- will be a sign of failure just like the, uh the people who asked the question."

"Success!"

On screen, Fegral jumped at the outburst and Saavik heard Jdhen and Arik make startled noises too.

Thair swept into view as Fegral tried pretending he hadn't jumped. What was worse? The sight of the Romulan who had caused Saavik such pain? Or what he carried?

What he carried was a newborn baby swaddled in blankets. The blood and birth fluids from its mother still stained its skin. It made a terrible comparison to Thair's well tended, strong dark looks.

"The first born!" he cried. "To be followed by so many others!"

Fegral lost his nervousness -- and forgot about the camera -- at the news. "The first born? When? I was supposed to be there at the birth. Let me examine her, you haven't even cleaned her up, Thair!"

Thair refused to relinquish his prize. "_I_ examined her and I cleaned and cleared anything that could harm her. Who cares about the rest? It won't be the last time someone else's blood touches her skin."

_He does not know how well he has foreshadowed her survival after we were abandoned._

But Thair had no inkling that the abandonment would happen. What plans could he have had that he pictured spilled blood by a child he treasured? _Why_ did he make the children like the one he held?

A blast of cold drifted through the chamber. It came from the air conditioning, but its timing served as a shiver at his words.

Fegral shifted again under Thair's arrogance and dismissal. He tried to rally. "She needs her name. We picked--"

"_I'm_ giving her a name right now." Thair leaned down closer so his face hovered over the infant's and began to recite. "'And those that were cursed were sent to the Wasteland where their blissful ignorance was lost to becoming the hunter or the hunted.'" His smile that mocked tenderness grew into a grin. A dark, chilling grin. "'And the day came that a child was born of her mother's pain. And they named her Dhivael because she was born as part of the storm.'"

His eyes lifted from the newborn to the twitching Fegral. "What's the matter? Don't like it?"

"Who would?" Fegral blurted out. "Quoting _The Wasteland_? You know what happened to those people!"

Thair laughed and then laughed more when the other flushed. He punished Fegral for that reaction by quoting more. "'And each of them was cursed all their wretched lives and so were all their tainted progeny. The Race of the Wasteland, marked with guilt and shame, and shunned liked the scorpions.' Look at you jump, Fegral! Don't be so superstitious! It's only a dusty old legend." He looked down again at the child. "She -- and all the others that will come after her -- are the reality."

The other male was beaten and turned away, maybe to leave before he was made into a bigger fool. Then he caught sight of the still active recording and swung back on Thair. "I need your research on hybrid sterility for the next report."

He got only a shrug.

"If they're sterile--"

Thair didn't look up. "Oh, my plans for them go on much further than one generation. Dhivael and the others are just the first wave. I'll send you my research."

That made Saavik grateful -- if she could use such a word -- that she had no plans for children. Even the slightest mischance in Thair's plans was a victory.

"Fine," Fegral said. "But it's no use continuing the report now. Computer--"

"Save report! File under my access." Thair spoke to the baby. "I want to keep a record of this moment. You're the real first step for this project. And it's going to be a glorious future."

He left the other scientist alone with that. Fegral fidgeted and then glared at the camera for catching his humiliation. "Switch off!"

The image went dark.

Saavik had only a second before the next image began. The questions she thought of in that instant would wait.

A female Romulan sat at a desk in the same room, and like Fegral, she looked right into the computer camera. Her brown hair was lighter than Saavik's, and it was pulled back tight from her long, thin face. The pale robes she wore washed out her face under the lights.

_Ejarh_.

"Progress report 372. Everything is going well. We improved our process in breaking down the control in our Vulcan subjects for breeding them--"

Saavik, as a scientist, had used that word _subjects_ herself many times and would use it a lot more in the future. If she had one. But to hear it used for the prisoners and the forced pon farr reduced to only a footnote in a report...

_At least, pon farr itself was not mentioned._

As much as Saavik thought of Commander Uhura, she didn't want their privacy invaded any more than it already was. And she knew the commander would feel the same way. So would Rrelthiz, if she was here.

"-- so the children are born now with more regularity. We are well aware of the risks involved with getting more subjects, but all data points to our needing at least one more group in order to have the proper gene pool."

A screen behind Ejarh scrolled with names and faces. They were too small to make out at this distance. Stacks of work now crowded the surfaces in the lab along with writing tools, tricorders, and portable scanners.

"I am attaching a full report on our practices in breeding the Vulcans--"

Saavik made herself remember that nothing else existed except these presentation drafts. That report on how to cause pon farr was as destroyed as Hellguard itself.

"--and the data for an increased gene pool. By our calculations, we'll need at least another--"

How many lives Ejarh wanted captured got cut off. Fegral entered carrying an infant in an odd recreation of his earlier report being interrupted by Thair. A young girl followed him, dressed in the plain blue tunic that all the hybrid children had worn. Her name tag read _Dhivael_. She looked the age Saavik had been when she had left Hellguard.

"Here he is!" Fegral held the newborn at an angle so Ejarh could see the baby's face. He noticed the computer recording and turned so it saw the infant as well. "Arngeir."

Arngeir was one of the ten in stasis right now. _And younger than me_, Saavik thought, although not as young as Arik. Still it meant that she had been born and was somewhere in the complex.

And that Arngeir's family sat somewhere in the audience, witnessing his first moments. While in the time of the video, his Vulcan parent -- the person they had lost -- was thrown back into the cells or died.

_Those poor people._

On the large screen, Ejarh protested. "What is he doing here? Fegral! I thought we had stopped this nonsense of parading them -- Dhivael! What are you doing out of quarters!"

Fegral's smile refused to go away just because Ejarh yelled. "She's helping me, aren't you, Dhivael? She's going to be a healer some day."

Ejarh started to protest, but didn't get a chance.

"No, she won't."

From out of a back corner where Fegral and the camera had missed him, Thair came into view.

"The latest tests show they're not meeting even basic standards for children their age. And they're beginning to fight each other."

As if that was her cue, Dhivael clenched small hands in fists. "That's not my fault! They keep taking food away! I got to fight to get enough. And the lessons are stupid! Not me!"

_She spoke in full Romulan!_

Not the bastardized subset of the language that Saavik and the others had created, but full Romulan.

_They used to teach us the real language..._ Unlike Saavik's childhood when she was always told their minds were too savage and lacked focus in the lessons.

Hard on the heels of that thought came: _there was _a _time when there was enough food for all of us_! It must have stopped when she was an infant. _But why had it changed?_

She waited for Thair to strike the girl for talking back, especially if she told the truth. But he didn't hit Dhivael. He couldn't even look at her.

"Get back to quarters."

That's all he did.

"No. I'm with Fegral." The small chin came up and the eyes demanded that Thair pay heed to what she said. She looked like the Noble Born instead of a mongrel born in a lab. Thair always looked expensive, but it was someone of a lower caste using money to raise himself. He had known of the breeding Dhivael showed.

His face flushed with anger and his lips twisted in a snarl. He moved so he towered over her. "_Get back to quarters_."

She lost the look of nobility and power and became a frightened girl. She stared at him, blinking, and started shrinking inside herself. It was the pose all the hybrids would learn: hunched in a cringe, a quiver of terror in tight muscles, and waiting for the blow.

"_Go!_" he bellowed and with a shriek, she ran from the lab.

Eharh was on her feet. "Thair! I never agreed with Fegral that we have regular children here, but treating them like that--!"

He rounded on her and caught Fegral starting to protest. He snapped at both of them. "They're a joke! You don't believe me? Here!"

He stabbed at a computer and then threw his hands at the screen. "See the results yourself!"

But he didn't look. He stormed out and then turned back at the door. "Computer, save report under my access! That way, I have a record that I warned you."

Ejarh ordered the camera to stop recording. One last brief shot showed her bending over the computer results with Fegral as his face blotched in patches, gripping Arngeir, and reading the test scores.

The screen went black and then showed the now familiar lab again. Ejarh sat in front of the camera once more, but Thair stood behind her shoulder in clear view this time. He glared at the floor.

"Progress report 1384--" she began.

His head snapped up. "I told you not to bother."

"Thair, we have to file the report. If we don't--"

"I told you. They've shut us down, Ejarh. They're sending a ship to break down the colony. Why bother recording a report that they'll just wipe out with everything else?"

"If we report on what we've accomplished, they may not shut us down."

Thair laughed at her. It was cold and cruel and it mocked her. Saavik had heard that laugh too many times. Ejarh recoiled from it.

"Don't be a fool, Ejarh. It's over."

"When they get here, they can test the hybrids themselves. They'll see--"

"The hybrids will be executed. So will all the Vulcans we have left. I've seen the orders. They're going to be wiped clean like all our systems and equipment. It'll be like they never happened."

Ejarh paled. It hollowed out her cheeks and under her eyes, and made the bone structure in her face stand out like a skeleton. "No... all our work..."

Thair laughed again, but it was a wan imitation of the one he gave before. "All our work is worth _nothing_."

She snapped, "Don't pretend it doesn't matter, Thair. This whole thing was your idea! You may not be the commander that's on the record, but _you_ created this project and _you_ got the backing to make it happen! So don't give me your stupid playacting that you don't care that it's going to be destroyed!"

He matched her, bared teeth and temper, and leaned down into her face. "I did create this project. It's _mine_. I was going to--" His eyes grew wide over what it was he was about to say. He plastered the insolence back in his expression. "I was going to do a lot of things, but what I'm not going to do is die over this. You want to save them? Fine. It's your life or theirs. What's your choice now?"

Her mouth worked for a second, but stayed silent.

He grinned at her, a little brighter now that he could enjoy her pain. "That's what I thought. Tell Fegral the new orders. He's still trying to salvage the little washouts. You can break the good news that he's failed as much as they have."

_If this is the day that he received orders to shut down the colony--_ Then that night was the last time he had Saavik beaten and said it was the only revenge he had left anymore.

He had also congratulated her on being a survivor and said it was a shame that "it won't help you to survive this time". Little did he know...

_Why were the executions halted?_

Thair didn't wait to leave the lab this time. He stared right at the camera. "Computer, save this file and lock it to my access. I'll have proof that I did what I was supposed to do." His intensity seemed over the top. When the ship arrived, his actions in tearing down the colony would give him more proof than a file.

_Is he concerned over someone else who will demand proof? Someone not on the ship?_

Did he show them this file?

No answers came because the screen blacked out again. Archernar had been right. Too many questions were still unanswered. Where were the explanations about the disease that he had promised they'd see for themselves?

The screen stayed dark for so long that people began to speak. T'Pau held up a hand for silence and she didn't raise the lights.

The screen came back on, but the blackness was barely broken with the image of the Romulan female standing in one small pool of light.

Ejarh. Older, too much more than she should be. It wasn't her clothes or the light robbing the color and the life from her skin this time. She looked like a carved wax figure with glass eyes.

"I'm the only one left still alive." She swallowed. "They killed everyone else, over time. I never saw Thair after the evacuation. He never transported to the ship like the rest of us. I heard Fegral made the mistake of arguing about the project once too many times. And the rest... we got hunted down by the people we used to -- who were bred with the Vulcans. It didn't matter that we gave up everything to do with the colony. Fegral's death taught us that. But they didn't like having anything tying them to the project and we were the last pieces of evidence left. I almost was killed myself, even after I went into hiding. I'd be dead now if--"

Her eyes darted off camera.

_Archernar_. Saavik figured it had to be him. She still didn't know why.

"So I'm the last thing left. Me... and these files. I didn't even see them until today."

She sagged a bit more. "Thair apparently was executed a little while after we left. Or so the Centurion who sold these files to Archernar said. He was the one who carried out the execution and took them from Thair's body. He tried blackmailing some people with them. I was next on the list... but I already said something about that."

A glow suddenly came into her gaunt face and her skeletal arms waved in the air instead of staying clamped to her body.

"Archernar says thirty three of you survived. _Thirty three!_ I can't believe it. We were told you were all executed before the ship left the colony. But you survived all alone for that long! _Thirty three _of you!"

_Twenty two now_, Saavik corrected automatically. And only twelve sat here watching this.

"The tests were wrong. I knew it! Our formulas couldn't be that wrong, I told Thair! I don't know where the testing went wrong... maybe environmental factors. If we corrected that or reevaluated the systems we used for testing--"

The scientist, happy that her lab rat ran correctly through the maze after all.

"I wish I could see you. Grown, accomplished. You became everything we said you would be."

The words scraped Saavik's sensibilities.

"How I'd love to prove our theories worked! Did your telepathic abilities develop? We were worried about that. We didn't know how to teach you and we could only hope we'd find a way to force the Vulcans to do it. Or at least reveal what the training should be."

One of the older hybrids had grabbed Saavik once on Hellguard. His mind had suddenly slammed into her head, shoved in like a cold blade.

_Yes, our telepathic abilities developed_.

She didn't look at Micar with his hand missing the one finger, but she couldn't keep out Valeris saying that Saavik had no idea what it was like to have someone's mind forced into hers.

Which made Valeris as wrong as Thair.

Some signal was given off screen. Ejarh's eyes darted there and came back. "Yes! I nearly forgot. Archernar told me about this disease. And you have some theories about it. We didn't develop it. It'd go against everything we wanted. We always intended you to live full lives in the Empire – well, until the end when the project was shutdown. We didn't have any need to create something as a self-destruct mechanism or to make you dependent on staying at the colony. It's not us. And Archernar has all the Hellguard information and it's only these presentation drafts that Thair saved. Any information that would give that right level of detail was wiped out when the project was shutdown. And we're the only ones who know you're alive. The disease does not come from the Empire."

A lot of theories and optimism sank with those words. The Romulans didn't do it. They didn't even help anyone to do it. The killer or killers were as dangerously unknown as before.

And what was worse was the small voice inside Saavik's head that admitted:

_I wanted it to be the Romulans_.

Because it would have justified so much.

Unless Archernar was wrong. But then, she was the one who had chosen him for the very reason that she knew he wouldn't get it wrong. If the slightest connection tied the Empire to the disease, he was the perfect person to find it.

If he hadn't found it, it didn't exist.

Ejarh gripped her bony fingers tight together, the enlarged knuckles going pale green. "You must find a way to cure this disease. You must survive! You're my proof, don't you understand? _You're my proof_."

Someone cursed from behind the camera and she disappeared.

Silence. No one in the hall said anything.

Then Mekhai jumped up. He threw something at screen. "Damn you to _hell_!"

No Vulcan stopped him or complained.


	22. Chapter 22

Another thick moment of silence followed Mekhai's outburst. Then T'Pau moved in front of them and her voice carried the burden of what they had just viewed. Her normally strong tones came out hushed and heavy.

"We cannot deny what we have seen. It has been verified. As we were warned in the beginning, more questions remain without answers."

She paused and then sought out Saavik and the others in the audience. "This Dhivael... She was not one of you when _Symmetry_ reached the colony."

Saavik didn't know what had happened to Dhivael. But others remembered if the way they darted glances at each other was any indication.

A'kornora was the one to stand up and answer T'Pau. "No, she was not there when the _Symmetry_ arrived. She... died approximately one year after her last appearance in the presentation."

_She wanted to be a healer. She was educated and more accomplished in it than any of us had imagined being at that age._

It was the only eulogy Saavik could give the girl. T'Pau stayed quiet a second longer for the same reason.

"Our primary concern for the moment is this disease. The Empire is not its source. This possibility is the reason why we have always investigated other causes. I suggest anyone involved in this investigation convene immediately."

Micar rose to his feet. "Before we leave, may I ask if I and the others could use this chamber to meet alone? With the files we just viewed?"

Saavik had wondered who would be the one to speak up. She had been ready to do it herself.

T'Pau naturally granted the request. Everyone understood they'd want time to absorb what they had just seen. As much as it affected them all, it was the survivors' past and their lives discussed and discarded by the people who had created them.

And it would give the Vulcan families time alone too.

If T'Pau or anyone else knew the real reason, they never would have agreed.

As people filed out, Saavik did not look at Spock, remembering too well what they had talked about so very recently. She equally stayed from Kirk's satisfied expression that she appeared to be leading this group at last and from Sarek and Amanda's glances of concern.

No one moved until even the faintest echoes of everyone else leaving faded away. Then Saavik leapt for Archernar's recording while two others, hampered by the drain of Phase III, followed in her wake. The rest moved down to closer seats or stood up if they had the energy, unable to sit down during this.

Saavik took over the controls for the files while Ny'Jul activated the screen and Sajjan ordered the room's systems to dim the lights. Saavik forwarded to the lab scene where names and details had scrolled behind Ejarh. She magnified that screen and every pair of eyes watched the names go by.

_Their_ names. Saavik stilled when she saw hers. Not at reading her name, although it was the first time she could read it spelled in Romulan, but at her picture. She had never seen herself in a mirror until she was onboard the _Symmetry_. Before that, it was distorted reflections in metal or water. She couldn't quite take in how her toddler image looked so... vulnerable. And trusting.

The only details next to her picture were her name, her ID number, and a link to her full file, which of course she could not access through this recording.

"They're not there," someone said.

"Why aren't they there?!" Mekhai shouted.

"Most likely, they were in the full files," Saavik responded. She didn't want it to be that way anymore than he did.

"We should have known," Sajjan whispered. She slipped back to the seats and sat down hard. "They made sure to erase their names, we should have _known_."

Saavik rapidly went through the presentation, for the sake of being thorough. She snuffed out the audio and brought up multiple images of every computer screen.

Nothing.

Ny'Jul had stayed put on the floor while Saavik worked, but with no more information coming, she turned to the group. "What do we do?"

She glanced at Saavik from the corners of her dark eyes, the makeup lines around them even darker. They were part of her being from the Ta'lendow province. So was her more shaggy hair. So were her inflections.

Mekhai drew himself up, maybe to point out his strength or give himself confidence. Maybe to intimidate the others. "We do it anyway."

"How?" The small braid and its bead behind A'kornora's right ear swung with her head. "And do you insist on still using that accent? _Now_?"

He ignored her, but his speech deteriorated even more. "Nothin' stoppin' us from goin'. Who says we can't?"

"No one," Micar answered, "but without the names of our Romulan parents, how will we find them?"

"Who says the names ain't out there? This guy -- uh, Archernar -- he didn' know to get 'em. That don' mean he can't!"

Saavik said, "He was told to find all information regarding the colony and ourselves. He further stated this was the only remaining data regarding the project. That would certainly eliminate the possibility of a file with the names we seek."

"You don' know!" Mekhai argued. "Why you got a _Romulan _contact anyway?"

There it was. The question she had known was on their minds.

She grabbed each person's eyes that she could. "He is a Starfleet contact. One made by the _Enterprise_ crew while I was onboard, during the same mission when I destroyed the colony."

A few shifted.

"The contact was done not out of personal connection, as you well know, but for payment. And it was done not through me, but Commander Uhura."

"That's sometin' else!" Mekhai took a few steps down. "How did outsiders find out 'bout us? You tell her?"

"Indirectly."

"Who cares about 'directly'! "Who said you talked for us wit'out asking? Nobody! You broke our privacy!"

She vaulted her eyebrows. "Oddly, Mekhai, you sound Vulcan."

He flushed and gripped his tight fists.

"I did not have the choice or the capability in that moment for group consensus. It was necessary I give details on my own life. As it was a secure channel, Commander Uhura was equally necessary to maintain that security."

Mekhai snarled. "You got choice. You just did what you wanted."

She turned back, ice to his fire. "Consider it the price for Hellguard's destruction."

He shut up. They all did.

"I used Starfleet resources to do it, including the plan they devised. I delivered the colony's death, but it would not have been done without the means I required to do it. The price paid is the knowledge of our past being known by one discreet individual. I consider it fair payment."

Komal answered, not Mekhai. "You mislead us, Saavik. You would have had the resources anyway if this Uhura had not heard of our past."

Mekhai's grin held nothing but sharp teeth. "Cunning," he said, knowing the Romulan reference would grate. "But you blew it, _Sa'Av Ik_."

That _damned_ accent!

Vi'hai hadn't met her eyes this whole time because his head had been down. Now he raised it with some little effort. "I have another question. Equally candid."

What new attack was this?

"We each want justice from the Romulans, especially the ones... whose biology we carry."

Any time they had used 'parent' before, it had been a terrible term. Until Vi'hai used this expression instead. Now Saavik preferred going back to the other word.

They carried the crime each Romulan had committed. It was in their blood. It was in the fact that they lived.

"If we still went to the Empire, who would survive the journey?"

He was tired just from being here. So were Micar, Ny'Jul and some of the others, and they were healthier than the ones who needed support to stay upright in their seats. The answer was obvious.

_The journey would kill many of them._ And Saavik realized she still thought in terms of 'them', not 'us'.

"We will not live to deliver the justice we want," said Vi'hai.

Arik whispered, "Maybe it's better to die that way then..."

Ny'Jul shot back, "It is easy for you to say, Arik. You would survive."

Mekhai pounced on that. "That's what we do. We go--" He swept a hand at Jdehn and Arik, who didn't look thrilled at being included in his group. "-- and we do it for everybody. We take Jdehn's ship--"

"Hey! Who said you decided about _my_ ship!"

"--we get the names from this--" Another wave of the hand to mean Archernar. "-- guy and we take care of it! You got guts, you come too."

The temptation to do it... but he made a dangerous assumption. "Archernar does not have the names," Saavik pointed out.

Mekhai jabbed a finger at her. "You're fightin' it 'cause you don't like that you didn' get them!"

"And perhaps you react in hindsight now that we know the records do not contain the information we sought."

Sajjan jumped to her feet. She was small, she always had been, and while she hadn't been the most timid on the colony, she never had been assertive either.

But life on Vulcan had thrown her a surprise. Her family had taken her in, but her new parents, aunt and uncle had died offworld five years ago, suddenly leaving the responsibility for the younger children and their home on Sajjan's shoulders.

The beta had learned to be an alpha. She had trouble for a moment standing up in front of the others, the old lessons of the colony almost bringing her eyes down and sending back to the safety (and shadows) of her seat. But maturity born from leading her house kept her in place.

"I have another question." Her chin came up as all eyes turned to her. "Why should we use what time we have left in chasing after the Romulans? Someone is killing us. Whoever they are, they are the most immediate threat. Find a cure for the disease and we have _time_ to bring justice to the Romulans."

Jdehn got to her feet now. "We got no more idea about a cure or who might've made the disease than we do our -- parents." She swallowed on the word. "We die trying to find that cure and then we wasted our time doing that instead of paying back the Romulans!"

"At least it gives us more opportunity than your plan!"

Mekhai stepped down. "Nobody's rememberin' that the names could be out there right now and we don' got 'em 'cause we never said to give 'em to us!"

Saavik spoke up again. "Archernar stated these were the only remaining data. Ejarh confirmed it. We know everything we can."

Mekhai slumped a little. It made a visible symbol of everyone's sense of defeat. But then his rage lifted him back up.

"They dunno everything! We got to find out. Pay 'im to find out and watch how fast he suddenly says he didn' give us it all before. We all said we'd pay his price for this stuff before."

Saavik gave a fleeting thought to what she had almost sacrificed to pay Archernar so she could control the data he'd send.

"Then the Vulcans paid, so good! And they even showed us what they got. So let's pay it now!"

Micar spoke for the first time. "I agree with Sajjan. The more immediate threat is this disease. We waste ourselves on any other fight than that."

That caused A'kornora to speak. "Micar, we can each do what we want. I side with Jdehn. Why die knowing _that_ Romulan is living? Even if we don't get our -- parents, why let Ejarh live? She's as guilty, maybe even more."

Eitan took a place with Micar as if A'kornora had threatened the weaker male. "You would be illogical? After Micar has pointed it out?"

She bristled. "Who gave Micar or Sajjan the power to declare logic for me?"

A few of her vowel sounds were flat next to his. Like Earth and so many other worlds, Vulcan's once rich diversity in languages and accents had been boiled down to a few by cultural dominance in past centuries. So A'kornora's home province in E'oDq sounded little different than Eitan's ShiKahr speech, but she used it to draw an invisible boundary between them.

Mekhai had to shove himself back in the front again. "And we don' know some Romulan didn' make the disease! We got to find out! That means we go!"

_We go in circles!_ _That is the direction in which we go._

"We have answered this point," Saavik argued out loud.

"You believe Romulans now? 'Cause your lover is one?"

Mekhai flinched in the next second when Saavik began crossing the floor and had reached the bottom of the steps to where he stood when he threw up his hands in retreat.

"Fine! Your _Starfleet_ contact. But c'mon!" He shouted at everyone. "You believe _that_ one? Ejarh and all of 'em lied all the time. But now you _believe _her? Who else can it be but a Rom? Nobody knows us like they do!"

He looked like he wanted to throw up by admitting that, and Saavik thoughts spun in no less a nauseous way. Who did know Hellguard and their backgrounds as well as the Romulans?

"It does not answer all the facts," she said. She tried to convince herself as much as anyone. "How did Romulans breach the Federation to infect us?"

_How did they reach me on the _Aerfen

Mekhai was olive in the face and the veins in his neck were thick ropes. "It don' mean that one of 'em didn' helped, gave information, somethin!"

"Either them," Komal began, "or--" She stopped. Saavik and five others got her meaning anyway.

"Do not finish that statement," Micar warned. "It is illogical."

"No," Komal answered, a strain in her voice. "To not think it is illogical. They are the only other ones who know as much."

"You accuse the _Symmetry_ team?" Sajjan's voice went up two octaves. "You accuse-"

Rierlyrq got to his feet, a male as dark and nearly as big as Sohan in stasis. "I will take such an accusation against Spock as a personal challenge."

"I was not accusing Spock!" Komal defended. "But others on the team. It is at least possible. At least a few were resistant to our coming to Vulcan."

"You have your family wiped out to create us and see how resistant you are, Komal." Rielyrq stood with such strength, it lied about the effects Phase III had on him. Only the gaunt tightness in his face told the truth. "They gave their word to Spock. Spock gave his word for them."

Micar spoke. "I will also take an accusation against Spock's word as a personal challenge."

"As will I," A'kornora said.

"And I," echoed around the chamber.

Except for Saavik. She knew how appalled Spock would be at this blind devotion causing violent challenges for his sake, so she didn't echo it. Frankly, she thought it ridiculous.

"Komal does not challenge Spock," she said. "Not one of us would. And while she has not mentioned the report which gives as much data as any we have named--"

"It's more personal than a report!" Mekhai hollered. "Who said you got to lecture anyway?"

Vi'hai's strained words slipped in between them. "We must make a decision."

"Each one for themselves," Komal insisted.

"Do we go and seek justice in the Empire?"

Put that way, Saavik began to see it as futile. It didn't mean she didn't want it.

"Or do we stay and seek out who created the disease?"

Which seemed equally futile and she wanted it equally as much.

Vi'hai said to Jdehn, "If you will take me, I will go to the Empire. I said I would not die in the hospital. I am no healer, I cannot find a cure. But I may find who is responsible for me and die with meaning."

Jdehn looked overwhelmed by his nobility, rather than the revenge she sought.

Micar stood taller with Eitan's help. "I will stay. I am no healer either, but some fact that I know, even unconsciously, may find these new killers. Then I will die with meaning."

Saavik wanted both and could not choose. Which battle? Both were too important to let the other go and, even though she didn't see it consciously, she didn't trust the others here to fight one of them for her.

But she trusted Spock. He would not stop until he had everyone responsible for the disease in hand. She could leave that fight for him and go to the Empire.

And... very possibly lose everything she had gotten back from him.

But if that price bought justice...

Someone interrupted, calling from the door. T'Pau. She was flanked by T'Mes and Stron. Immediately, everyone in the chamber straightened, forced calm, and wondered how much she had heard.

"I need to inform you of what has just occurred."

Her face revealed no change, neither did the two VSE officers, but Saavik had seen enough commanders in situations like this.

"It is the patients in the stasis units. They have been attacked."

Saavik and the others didn't have T'Pau's skills or experience to so eloquently control their reactions. When the stone masks slid over their faces, it was noticeable to other Vulcans.

Jdehn cursed under her breath and Mekhai balled his fists. Arik paled.

"The life support in the units was disengaged and the alarms turned off. The remaining systems prohibited the patients from re-awakening or calling for help. They -- are dead."

Micar turned so abruptly, he stumbled. Arik dropped into a chair. Saavik held herself tight as each of the others dealt with the news in their own way.

Ten more dead. Just like that. Ten _more_ gone.

And now they were twelve.


	23. Chapter 23

Jim had called the atmosphere in the stasis room the same as a morgue when the ten Vulcans had been closed in their chambers. He had been so wrong. The patients had been alive then.

Now each stasis unit sat like eggs cracked open to get at the delicate creature harbored inside. McCoy's fingers stroked the display with the same delicate touch that he used when holding a vital organ in surgery. Only this morning, the panel had pulsed with bright life, glowing with Sohan's name and his steady biosigns. The low pulses and rhythmic thrums had sung a subdued hymn of peace and serenity. Of presumed safety. Now the system stayed as dead as the dark, still body that had been removed from it.

Except that each chamber could come to life again. Sohan and the other nine victims could not.

"How does someone kill ten people and leave no trace!"

McCoy couldn't answer Kirk because he had no answer, just a gut wrenching pain that made him sick on top of it. His face reflected back at him from the unit's panel. Its dark color gave his skin and the sagging lines nearly the same pigmentation as Sohan.

Commander Stron answered Jim. "There is a trace. The danger lies in the fact that we are unable to discover it."

McCoy couldn't stop the glance over his shoulder. The two commanders stood in the center of the room like it was a starship bridge. Stron's eyebrows were screwed together and Kirk wiped sweat from his upper lip with his thumb.

Kirk flicked a look back to the VSE officer and then came the command the doctor had heard him give on the _Enterprise_ million times. "Report."

His captain offered it as a lifeline, something to hold on to and be pulled back into action. McCoy answered it, but didn't let it drag him from under the weight he bore.

He grabbed the tricorder sitting on the stasis unit's edge and scraped together a voice. "The autopsies didn't tell us much, Jim. It simply looks as if the disease hurried through to its conclusion once stasis was shut off. Instead of having days to live, my patients died in a minute."

He snapped the chamber's lid closed. The slight click sounded so final. It _was_ final. Who knew that better than him? "We didn't even have time to save one of them when the alarms went off. Even the guard couldn't get in the room fast enough. We're not sure since the units were off, but we don't think they regained full consciousness."

He imagined the big Sohan coming out of peaceful sleep into dying from starvation. Or Arngeir, the dark waves of his hair curling around a face like Michelangelo's David, gasping for life as dehydration took him. Or any of the other eight too weak to fight for the few seconds more of life it would take for someone to come rescue them.

He scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. "At least, I hope they didn't suffer through that."

From across the room, Subcommander Soluk spoke to Stron from his spot next to Spock. "All ten katras were lost."

McCoy slammed his hand down on the stasis chamber. He glanced over his shoulder and blinked at Commander Stron, like he had forgotten the Vulcan was there. He laid his hands on the dark unit, and its lifeless reflection turned his sunken eyes into black holes. "I apologize for my behavior, Commander. It's just that -- when I got here, six people were already dead. I vowed I was going to stop that. And instead, whoever is doing this has stolen _fifteen more lives_ and I've done nothing."

_Except make these poor people defenseless by putting them in here_.

_That same way Jim felt when he ordered those two men to beam down and instead, they were transported out into space_. Choked to death in the vacuum. But Jim hadn't given this order so McCoy turned from meeting his best friend's eyes.

He waited for Vulcan reproach. Maybe, if he was lucky, Spock would make one of those comments of his that sounded like a reprimand, but meant to tell McCoy he understood.

But he had underestimated these people.

"We also bear the same responsibility in our own way, Doctor. We instructed their families that the patients were safe within our security measures. And we hold Life as valuable as you do. Captain Kirk," Stron continued, "we must face one inevitable conclusion. We suspected at least one or more of those responsible for this disease were here on Vulcan. It is inescapable now."

_The killer's here..._

And he was beating them at every turn.

But they would get whoever it was and he would find a way to cure this disease. They had to, because if they didn't, he'd be putting Saavik and the others into the grave with the other twenty-one patients he had failed.

"Bones, could anyone shut down the stasis chambers?"

McCoy took a deep breath, not because of Kirk's question, but to get his mind back on the path of doing something to help. "No, only certain people are authorized."

"The medical team? Does each of you have individual access?"

Stron had just said they had to face inevitable conclusions, so McCoy didn't make his usual comment that it couldn't be someone on his team. It certainly looked like it could be because who else _did _have access to do it?

But he still couldn't think of who it was! Was he really that bad a judge of character because as he went over each face one by one, he couldn't come up with one possibility. It would be like accusing Christine Chapel of doing it.

_But you don't know these people the way you do Christine_.

Which was why he wasn't the only one investigating them. Let someone with some distance help him out. "General access, Jim, locked to the people who were cleared to be on the team. They'd have to get past the security at the door and each chamber would make sure they had the authority to even check the vitals for the patients on the panels."

Kirk took a step forward. "Does the stasis unit save that data?"

McCoy shook his head again and said nothing this time.

_Beaten again!_

The stasis chambers weren't security units; their systems only went so far with that.

"A disastrous loophole," Stron noted.

Kirk bit out through his teeth, "We weren't criticizing."

The words rumbled from deep in the Vulcan commander's chest. "I was. Our planning was flawed and it cost ten lives. Soluk! Have you checked the security images for inside the room?"

The subcommander nodded and seated himself at the station behind his and Spock's back. He brought the images up on a monitor but let Spock talk for him. "Despite our having a basis for the time of the attack, we have investigated the footage for the entire day."

McCoy stared at the images, but stayed in the same spot with a hand on the empty chamber.

Soluk alternated between forwarding the file to letting it proceed at its normal speed so they could better see each person who entered and went near the stasis units. The room filled with the sound of running vital signs again and the chambers in the images glowed with life.

Tu'ong entered the room at the beginning of the day. Srre, S'ad, Rrelthiz, and Sorel each entered at other times.

Stron asked, "Who was the last to enter the room?"

"I was."

Four heads swivelled to stare at McCoy.

"I stopped before going to see Archernar's files."

Kirk spoke sharply to Stron. "Dr. McCoy wouldn't have attacked those people."

_Thanks, Jim_. But probably unnecessary.

Stron held up a staying hand. "We make no accusations. The doctor has been cleared of any possibility of being the culprit. I read Spock's report."

McCoy nearly shouted to Spock, "You put me on report?!"

Spock flicked up an eyebrow. "To be thorough, Doctor. You can see why. However, your innocence along with the security footage establishes the patients' well being. They had not been attacked prior to your checking on them."

He choked back a few really good expletives because he did understand that Spock needed to be thorough. _What a damned waste of time, investigating me!_ "So it was done after that. While we were in the meeting with T'Pau."

"Or shortly afterwards, yes."

Kirk jumped on that. "Where's the security footage for that time?"

"They were shut off, Captain." Spock pointed at the screen and Soluk fast forwarded to the last image that was taken. "This time coincides to our leaving the conference chamber."

"_How_ were they shut off? Don't we have a record of it?"

"That is being investigated, Captain."

Spock indicated with a nod where Subcommander T'Mes turned from the door with a tricorder in her hand. "No change in the security systems. They show no entry into the room since Dr. McCoy entered when the patients were still alive. The systems were not accessed again until the security guard ran a report after the attack."

_And it showed nothing._

Kirk looked out through the glass to the audience viewing area where the guard stood ready in case he was needed to report again. _And no one attacked him or got past him._

But somehow, someone did. They got past the door and even shutdown the security cameras inside the room.

He turned. "Spock, could it have been done remotely?"

_Remotely!_ McCoy attacked the chamber's controls. The stasis unit didn't have what Kirk was suggesting built-in. Someone had to add it and he should be able to find it. Maybe they left enough of a trace that he could even figure out who. After all, it'd take an experienced hand to do that kind of engineering. Sorel could do it -- _hell, so could I_. -- but not someone barely in his career like Srre.

But Spock already had the answer. "No signs of remote access, Captain, and the stasis units do not allow for an indirect command."

Soluk suddenly whispered to him and the two Vulcans bent over something. Spock nodded and straightened up.

"Subcommander Soluk has made a discovery."

Whenever McCoy saw Soluk, he thought of Spock's counterpart in that violent, parallel universe where the Federation was an Empire and its sign was a dagger plunged through Earth. _It's the beard_. And that restrained edge to his personality. Even though the doctor didn't mean it as an insult, he kept the unflattering comparison to himself.

"Sirs, if you will watch the monitor."

The security footage ran through on the screen Soluk indicated. It showed the outside door and the guard at his station. Nothing happened until the alarms went off when the patients' lifesigns stopped.

Kirk admitted, "I didn't see anything. Was it edited?"

"It was." The voice was as deep as Sulu's. "With a good deal of expertise. Their only mistake was in the accessing address." Soluk touched a few controls then pointed to a new line of data running underneath the security video. A digital signature stayed the same until a few minutes before the attack; then it changed back to the original a moment before the alarms sounded.

"The first address is the security system," Soluk said. "The second is the guard station."

Kirk exclaimed, "The guard did it?"

Spock shook his head. "Unknown. The signature does not include a personal ID. He is, however, a possibility."

McCoy bolted for the door. He barely heard Kirk shout "_Bones!_" It was the hand on his arm that yanked him to a halt. He jerked around into Kirk's face.

"I put these people into stasis, Jim! I told them we would save them if they did it, _I _told them it would stop them from dying! I wanted everyone in Phase III to do it, don't you remember me bragging about it at the restaurant? I tried shoving _Saavik _in one of them!"

He pulled his arm out of Kirk's grip and headed for the guard. T'Mes was at the door, but she only gave her husband a nod and stepped aside. When McCoy cleared the door, she fell in with him.

_Fine, let her come along._

She wasn't the only one. Everyone seemed to be at his back, but Commander Stron was saying to Kirk, "We must investigate the rest of the guard as initial checks may have been inadequate. In the interim, we three have been granted advanced clearance. If you will agree, I will assign Soluk to the Phase III ward."

_The other patients_...

McCoy stopped long enough to see that with another nod, Soluk was gone to take his post. Then he barreled into the observation room. The guard rose to his feet.

McCoy started shouting before the Vulcan stood all the way up. "We caught you! You changed the security tape! You let in the killer! Who are you working for? Or did you kill ten people yourself!"

The guard just stared at him.

"Doctor, if I may?" asked T'Mes.

"What! Tell me not to be so emotional? To be logical!"

She gave him that same look of amused patience that she had used in the restaurant. "No, doctor, translate. He is not fluent enough in your language to understand you when you speak at this pace."

"Then wait a minute," he said to her. He didn't know enough Vulcan to hold a simple conversation, but just yesterday, he had learned a couple more words from T'Pau herself when Spock had translated something she had said after the attack. If he was going to accuse someone, he would do it himself. "You," he began and he jabbed a finger in the Vulcan guard's face, "_k'tajamat._ You _tal'valkur_."

The guard actually took a slight step back and McCoy knew he had said correctly that the guard violated life and killed out of illogic and vicious emotion.

"Okay," he said to T'Mes, "please translate what I said earlier."

She did so and the guard replied immediately.

"He said you are mistaken."

McCoy hadn't looked at Spock before to make sure he had spoken Vulcan correctly, but this time he glanced over to see Spock nod. T'Mes had repeated his statements -- and the guard's -- faithfully.

She didn't appreciate his doubting her and he didn't blame her. He would have lashed out if she had done it to him, but it was too late to take it back.

"Tell him that Soluk caught him changing the security video. See if you can get him to admit that he shutdown the security cameras inside the stasis room. And gave himself clearance to shutdown the chambers."

"Bones--"

"Jim, it makes sense! He gave himself an alibi with the edited playback showing him at his station! Then he saves time by just turning off the security in the room so he can use it to add himself to the unit's access!"

"Doctor," Spock began, "you are making assumptions when other possibilities exist."

"Fine. He let someone in who already had access to shut off the stasis units. That makes him just as guilty of killing those people! I know you agree to that."

Spock nodded as did Stron. Kirk spoke, "Just don't limit the questioning, Bones." He looked over to T'Mes. "Please translate what we said before about him doing this himself or allowing in someone else."

"It is not necessary." The guard wrapped his tongue around the unfamiliar words. "I can understand when you speak at this speed. But I did not do this."

T'Mes moved over to a computer and tied into Spock and Soluk's research in the stasis room. She spun the small screen so the guard could see it.

"This states you are incorrect." She let him watch it in silence while McCoy found himself holding his breath.

"You stated," T'Mes continued, "that you were not attacked or replaced at your post. Therefore, you were the only one at this station to edit the security playback."

"You're trapped." McCoy didn't shout anymore. He _waited_ to finally hear that one name they had been searching for all this time. Even if it was someone he knew on the medical team. They _had_ to have it. "You either did it or you're lying about not leaving your station."

A helluva accusation against a Vulcan.

"I did not," the guard insisted.

"Did you give someone remote access to the units?" Kirk asked.

"If I had, I could not need to stop internal security for the rest of the day. Better to let the playback record the stasis chambers shutting down without myself there."

T'Mes agreed. "Logical."

_Dammit! It is._

So McCoy tried a softer approach this time, more so that he wouldn't look like a raving madman than having an effect on a Vulcan. "If you let someone else replace you, just tell us who."

Kirk added, "Or who it was that you let in."

The guard's hand touched his forehead as if trying to draw out an answer.

Saavik's hand dropped from her temple. "Captain, there must be an error."

Hunter was on the viewscreen in the office Kirk and Spock were using. "No errors, Saavik. We found this through sketchy means in the beginning, but we have proof now."

"'Sketchy'?'"

"Superficial." The captain leaned forward in her seat, blocking the photos bolted to the half wall near her desk that showed her grown daughter smiling at her mother, right next to the people in Hunter's group marriage. Her hair was unbraided and the phoenix eagle's feather fell forward, brushing her mouth. Without even thinking about it, she tucked it back.

"One of the nurses, Dasan, came forward. He remembers coming in and seeing another Vulcan talking to you around the time we docked at Falk 2. Dasan tried to track down any records showing this person came on the ship before saying anything, but he couldn't. He decided to do the right thing and tell us anyway, just in case it meant something."

In comparison to Hunter's cabin, the office stood out as impersonal and bare. Which it was. It was also private at the moment and very close to where Saavik had been on her way to join the others when she heard the _Aerfen_ was contacting her. "He's certain it was a Vulcan?"

"Based on physical appearance and dress. Male with dark hair, but Dasan saw him from the back and too fast so he can't tell us any real details. Why? I thought the Romulans weren't on the list of suspects anymore. Don't look surprised -- for you, I mean. I talked to Uhura first and she updated me."

Saavik nodded. "The Romulans have been eliminated, Captain, at least for the motives we earlier subscribed to them. A personal attack is possible although we have no evidence of it as yet."

"Then here's a piece of evidence to back up Dasan thinking it was a Vulcan. You would never allow a Romulan onboard."

Saavik's jaw settled into a firmer line at the thought of it.

"And Dasan's sure it was you. So I'm giving high odds that your guest was a Vulcan. Sit down, Mr. Saavik, I'm tired of looking up from your bellybutton. That's better." Hunter sat back herself with a grin that faded out. "You don't remember any of this, do you? I knew you didn't or you would've told me. That makes the whole thing even more suspicious. How does someone with your memory not remember?"

"Perhaps I have forgotten. It appears to be a minor encounter not worth remembering."

Hunter's grin came back. "Name the people in the last meeting you were in on the _Aerfen_."

"In addition to the two of us, Lieutenant Commander Serti and Chief Jakobs."

"And who was it that came in the room to give me something? They didn't say anything and they were only there for ten seconds."

"Seven seconds, Captain, and it was Ensign Grouse."

Hunter smirked. "You'd remember that Vulcan. And Dasan remembers him."

"Captain, does anyone else recall this Vulcan?" _Dasan might be mistaken. It would explain my not remembering_. Although she believed the same as Hunter did, except it did not make sense.

"Yes, they do. Here's where it starts to gets worse." Hunter tapped at her desk computer as she kept talking to Saavik. "Hoskins remembers a communique that someone wanted to speak to you, but not that he came on board. And we can't find any records that say this guy was beamed up or ever sent you such a call."

"Then surely--"

"Wait. This is where we go back to where I started and you wondered if it was a mistake. Someone came on board without any record of it."

Captain Hunter would not call just to say that. She said they had proof, but everything she reported pointed out no proof, only the vague memories of two of the crew. Saavik didn't know Nurse Dasan well, but she knew Lieutenant Lynne Hoskins well enough. Like Hunter, she'd never go this far without being sure. Of _something_.

Saavik finally had to admit, "I do not see your point, Captain."

"Sorry, I haven't made it yet. I shouldn't have made a dramatic pause until I did. Mr. Rokee searched the computer for those records."

Saavik asked, "Who is Mr. Rokee?"

Hunter looked up from the computer and just gazed through the screen for a second. "Your replacement from Starfleet."

Saavik's eyebrows started going up before she got control of it. "Naturally. I was... only expecting a member of my own department to be promoted instead of someone assigned by Command."

Hunter had the same calm tone, but Saavik heard the edge behind it. The same edge in the message that she had insisted on hearing where her captain notified them Saavik was on the inactive duty list. "I'm not promoting anyone into a position that's already filled by you. Command can think what they want, but Rokee's temporary. When you're ready to come back, he gets the boot."

_She gives me the highest compliment. An officer such as her supporting me to this extent._ "If Mr. Rokee is a good officer, Captain, I would not want to hinder his career with my return."

Hunter laughed, a good, real happy laugh. "I'm not such a barracuda as all that, not to this guy anyway. I'll make sure Rokee gets a good berth -- unless it's so good, I get it for you. _You_ just make sure to come back. I meant that order I gave you when I left Vulcan, Lieutenant."

Saavik didn't know what to say to that. She could not promise to cure the disease, so she settled for nodding.

"Getting back to it, Rokee went over the computer and Hoskins through the communication records. They didn't find a trace of any records, but they _did_ find traces of someone removing records for that exact period of time."

Saavik waited, but Hunter must want her to ask. "Do they know who?"

"Yes." Her captain flipped the monitor towards the pickups so Saavik could see for herself. "You."

"Captain, I would _not_ remove data!"

"I know. You wouldn't be so sloppy as to leave a trace either. Saavik, could this mystery Vulcan or someone else break into your personal security? Use your access to delete these records?"

"I would normally say no." _But Valeris violated my personal security as well as Spock's_. "However, I recently have seen one person do exactly this action so evidence suggests that so could another."

"One person--? Oh, I understand now. I heard about that. Saavik... when this is over, I could see about getting you that science officer's position on the _Enterprise_. I'm sure it could have been yours, after all."

"I appreciate your offer, Captain. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock have also offered. However, Starfleet has already given the position to someone else." And thinking about something that wasn't going to happen was a waste of time.

"Saavik... could Valeris have done this?"

"She has displayed the necessary skills, but no evidence suggests she is involved with the disease. I do not believe her a part of it."

"Neither do I. Or Cartwright. They had other things on their agenda. But someone did. This _has_ to be when you were infected. Nothing else is even close to being a possibility."

"There is one other problem, Captain. This event took place 5.79 months prior to my showing symptoms. We do not have an exact point for an incubation state, but theories limit it to 2.5 weeks."

"Could they put a delayed effect on the disease?"

She frowned. "No one else has ever exhibited such an effect."

"No one else serves on a Starfleet vessel either. If you get sick as soon as this Vulcan - or whoever - leaves, we immediately arrest that person. They'd need the time to get away and establish an alibi for when you do get sick. Who knows? Maybe they set it on a trigger and it took longer for it to go off than they meant for it."

"Captain, you said 'this Vulcan or whoever'?"

Hunter sighed and leaned her head on one hand. "That whole idea of a delayed strike... it seems Romulan, doesn't it? But I can't believe he could have fooled you that much."

A Romulan portraying himself as a Vulcan? No, Saavik did not believe that either. Except:

"If this event is true, then whoever did this managed to deceive me enough to infect me."

"And remove your memory of it." Hunter leaned close again. "You got to remember who that was, Saavik. I'm stating the obvious, but you have to at least figure out why you don't remember."


	24. Chapter 24

That was why Saavik crossed the open courtyard at the hospital. Spock and Kirk had her summary report, giving them the highlights of her conversation with Captain Hunter, but they needed the details. She needed help with two questions: why didn't she remember that encounter with the Vulcan? And who on their list of suspects had the technical skills to violate her security access?

She headed for the stasis room, just as she had been doing when Hunter had contacted her. Maybe Kirk and Commander Stron's teams had found something that would explain what had happened on the _Aerfen_. Or maybe this new mystery would make something come clear about the stasis chamber attacks. She took the quickest route and cut across the courtyard. The fresh air and touch of the sun made for a better walk than the maze of corridors attaching the different buildings of the hospital and Science Academy. It was also how Mekhai attached himself to her.

"Hey, Saavik!"

She shot him a look over his bellowing in the peace of the hospital - not to mention bothering her at all. He didn't even care.

"Gotta talk to ya." He at least wore a light, sand colored covering over the shirtless vest he habitually wore. Someone had warned him about the sun and he had finally paid attention.

She never broke stride. "I have little time, Mekhai. I am reporting to the stasis room."

He shrugged and fell into step. He wasn't long legged like her, but even with her speed, he kept up with no problem. He was in such good physical shape that he didn't even lose any breath with talking at the same time. "Make your mind up?"

"Regarding?"

"You goin' to the Empire wit' us or stayin' wit' the fight here."

Her stride didn't hitch but her mind did. "Hasn't that decision been made for us with this last attack?"

"Nah, course not. Jdehn's gotta job and we're playin' crew for it. It's near the border so we take care of that and slip in."

"It will not be so easy as that."

"Who said easy? But it's the plan. So you comin'? You said nothin' at the meetin'."

No, she had never made that decision, but had this latest attack made it for her? Along with finding out about the puzzle about her supposed visitor and security attack on her ship?

_Former ship_, she corrected herself. She was no longer a part of the _Aerfen_'s crew... and no longer in uniform.

But did staying here mean throwing away her only chance to bring justice against her Romulan parent?

Mekhai suddenly stopped. "What's _that_? Hear it?"

Yes, although she hadn't payed attention to it. "It is the children's choir. They are broadcasting their music into the courtyard. They are most likely rehearsing in the Arts center. It is near the Science Academy."

He forced her to stop by shouting after her. "Why?"

She came back the step or two to keep his rude volume down. "Unknown. Perhaps some of the children are here in the hospital or they have family who are patients. Perhaps it is merely to add to the serenity here."

He listened like an animal catching an unknown sound. The children's voices were so innocent, so... pure that they carried the light and the breeze along with them. More than one adult, both Vulcan and offworlder, listened as the song layered in its harmony. It didn't overpower, but drifted like a underlying soft scent, an unobtrusive hint of a flower or spice in the air. Even as Mekhai's face clouded over.

"Never fought for a thing in their lives. Nothin' hard, everythin' handed to 'em. So easy -- so _clean_."

For the first time since he had landed on the planet, Saavik understood him. "Yes, they are. Their view of hardship is nothing to ours. However, Mekhai, that is the way it should be. Would you condemn them to our childhood because we did not have theirs?"

"You sayin' that's it for you? You hear that and... and it's, it's fine?"

She pictured those young faces, lifted in song, their eyes youthful and their lives untouched by shadow. Bellies that never knew anything but a wealth of food and hearts that never knew anything but the security of sleeping safely in the night.

"No, it is not so easy for me anymore than it is for you. But I would not damn someone with their own Hellguard. Cheating them will not give us what we lost."

"So just forget it? Like that's ok then? You know what song I got taught as a kid? _Come dance in the night winds and sail to the stars. We will come home with blood on our feathers_--"

"-- _from winning the enemies' wars_," Saavik finished. It was the song the _Aerfen_ crew had overheard and she had identified before a battle started. A song of deep space, of bravery and kinship, of coming back to the haven of the home stars. She hadn't heard it in so many peaceful years until that day on the bridge.

Mekhai bared his teeth. "You know how I know it?"

"Yes. The Romulans sang it the same time every year. A number of them would build bonfires, especially once we were abandoned, and they would sing around it."

"They'd get drunk and laugh when--"

"--they would shoot at us if we drew too close to the firelight and could be seen. They created a game from it with a scoring system based on the difficulty of the shot and the level of wound they inflected on us. A death brought the highest score. I was there, Mekhai."

"Yeah. Yeah, you were."

Drunken voices garbling the lyrics, the phaser shots going by her head as she clutched a stolen scrap of food, and then profane laughter, hard and cruel to her ears, slurring _the blood's on _her _feathers! Not ours!_

No wonder she had never smiled or laughed, even after leaving Hellguard. When had a smile or humor or strong emotions been anything but the precursor for cruelty?

Mekhai listened another second more, but that's all he could take. He turned away and walked hard from the music. He tore the covering off his body and his muscles were displayed as hard lines under the vest, as severe and terrible as the darkness in his expression. He plowed into people instead of moving around them, not caring about the complaints that they spoke out loud or said in their stares. In fact, Saavik suspected he deliberately pushed into anyone he saw listening to the children's song and used his appearance that was so obviously not Vulcan as a weapon. He speared people with it, daring them to start something so he could finish it.

She moved quickly in front of him and acted as a buffer between his bitterness and the innocent bystanders in the courtyard. It wasn't what she wanted to do, but it was what she had to do. They said nothing until they were in the next building.

"Gotta headache?"

She glanced over but didn't stop again. "Why would you ask?"

He stayed hunched against the music outside, but he talked like he had forgotten it – until the last sentence. "You kinda look like you do. Forehead's scrunched up a bit and you're a little pale. Saw it when I caught you back there. I got one the other day. So did Jdehn and Aik. Hearin' those kids do it to you?"

Now Saavik came to another halt. "All three of you had headaches?"

"Yeah, so? That Kirk kept yellin' questions."

Saavik doubted Captain Kirk had yelled at all. "What type of questions did he ask?"

"Somethin' about us landin' here and did we remember somebody callin'. So what." He walked a few steps but now she kept him back when she didn't join him.

Jdehn, Mekhai, and Arik exhibited head pain when they were questioned recently. She had a slight headache when Hunter talked to her. It could be a coincidence or part of the disease.

She changed direction. "We have to go to the Phase III ward." If headaches, even mild ones, were something happening to the four of them and it wasn't a coincidence, then some of the others would have gone through this too. It would be in the medical charts at the ward and the doctors would know about it -- or needed to be told to check the others. Every detail could lead to an answer.

She entered the ward from the far end of the main duty station, closer to Micar's mural than Pekhi's old bed. She glanced around quickly but the room was a lot emptier than before. The ten latest deaths accounted for part of it and so did Vi'hai's leaving for home, but Saavik expected more people than this.

Another ghost from Hellguard's past leapt up in front of her, as unwelcome as the memory of the bonfire a few minutes ago. On four of the beds, the patients' clothing lay neatly folded and stacked on the side tables. Something about the careful way the clothes were put out where they could be seen, like a marker...

"_K'htoditk!_"

Mekhai's cursing told her that he saw the same ghost. His wide eyes barely blinked as his head turned slowly to her and he just as slowly nodded.

She rushed from one bed to another. Micar's painting equipment was just as carefully packed and lay underneath his clothes. Another bed left a bracelet, worn smooth from its owner never taking it off until now. The same was true at the other beds. Each person had left personal articles that clearly meant a great deal along with their hospital clothing.

Saavik stopped a nurse and indicated the four beds. "Where have they gone?"

"For home. They did not wish to -- stay."

_They did not wish to die here_ was what the nurse had been about to say, but Micar never would have left something so intensely personal as his painter's kit behind if he went home or if he was going with Jdehn to the Empire.

Saavik glanced down the long length of the mural, ending with the figures right above her head, and came face to face with herself.

_When did he do this_?

She was in the cream sleeveless dress she had worn to the presentation. He must have memorized what she looked like then and used it as his model. In fact, Jdehn, Arik, and Mekhai were in their clothing from then. _All_ of the survivors wore clothes from their lives after the colony, but in their eyes... in their eyes, they said hid a past too terrible to talk about out loud. Amanda's twilight eagle perched on the rock formations with them and some shadowy predator concealed itself so its lines could barely be made out while its bright eyes glowed dully in the dark. The sun set, bathing their lower halves in hues of red while stars began appearing as a canopy above their heads.

The nurse noticed her staring. "He exhausted himself finishing it. He added you and the others after he returned from your meeting. He said he had a more immediate deadline than he had first decided. Most likely, he referred to his decision to leave the hospital."

"Can't be!" Mekhai said, barely waiting for the nurse to leave. "How could they go and do it when they just talked about fighting here or the Roms!"

"We have to make certain." She went after the nurse and asked her if anyone had contacted the families to see if the patients had reached home. Vi'hai's records showed he made his regular contacts with the medical staff assigned to his home care, but Micar and the other three had postponed their first appointments. Each one stated they wanted time for rest and meditation, and said someone would pick up their belongings. Each of them, Micar, Eitan, Kf'iskjyk, and Ny'Jul, had contacted the hospital from somewhere other than their homes. Each of them gave their messages to separate people, so no one would suspect the similarities.

It could be all innocent, but the messages chiseled away at the possibility. The Vulcans on Hellguard who had decided to dictate their own deaths had stacked their clothes precisely in the same way as they walked out into the desert to die. Anything they valued would be lain with their clothing to be passed on to other survivors and perhaps even to those at home, if the others were rescued.

At the other end of the ward, outside the main doors, Saavik saw a familiar figure go by: Subcommander Soluk.

"What now?" Mekhai asked. "Don' take off, Saavik, talk! I can help!"

"Mekhai! I can calculate the path they are most likely to take from here if they truly are going to commit suicide beneath the sun. I will inform Subcommander Soluk and he will have a medical team on emergency standby if I am correct."

_And if I am not, I will have not taken the medical staff away from important duties_.

"Then go, I'll tell this guy what you said. -- Don' argue! You know this place, you can find 'em."

It would save time if he reported to Soluk and they had very little of it if they were right. "Inform the subcommander I am investigating our theory that these four will commit _kalifee v'rekor_. It is the Vulcan term. He will understand what needs to be done. Also inform him I will use one of the groundcars assigned to the task force."

He rushed out and she tackled the nurse one last time. She requisitioned a medical tricorder and packed an emergency kit. She told the other Vulcan to verify her need for the supplies with Subcommander Soluk and was out the doors after a quick glance showed Mekhai talking, his hands wildly waving as he explained what was happening.

She reached the groundcar and started its engine when someone came up on the passenger side. Mekhai jumped into the seat next to her, panting a bit. "That Soluk figured you could use help if you find 'em. He told me how to get here before you took off." He grinned. "You still move fast."

They were in the air and cutting around Shikahr's congested areas before he spoke again. "Where we goin'?"

"They most likely would not waste time. The longer the route they take, the most chance of discovery. We will explore the more direct path first and then move on a course that will take us along a number of entry points into the desert. The tricorder will enable us to scan for their lifesigns and they will leave their clothing as a marker wherever they have entered as they left their hospital garb."

He didn't bother telling her that he knew that last part. He didn't say anything at all as they left the city behind them, just gripped the instrument board in front of him. City buildings dwindled down into residential sections. Saavik didn't know if Micar had taken public transportation or a private car, but most likely he and the others had used the former. Most Vulcans did. She didn't bother trying to track down the exact transport because he was nearly a day ahead of her. Trying to find someone who had seen him or the other three would take much longer than what she planned.

"You know, I was at one of the same schools you were." Mekhai stared straight ahead as if they could see signs of Micar already. "I was after you left. Stayed in the same foster home too." He shook his head. "Don' know why I just said that."

She hadn't planned on asking although she had wondered. It didn't matter anyway because he spoke again after a pause.

"Gotta be thinkin' 'bout all the past. Those kids and everythin'." He fell back into silence, but not for long. "The Rrakarran couple – that foster home. Remember 'em?"

Yes, she did. The two big fierce looking males, similar to Terran wolves, but disciplined and honorable. More importantly to her, they never pried into her life, but provided a safe haven while she took her concentrated and accelerated courses meant to make up for the years she lost on Hellguard. She had stayed there for a year before moving to the next school and foster home.

"I remember them," she said. "They were good people."

"Yeah," Mekhai replied, still looking ahead. "They talked about you." He shrugged. "All good stuff."

She stopped the car long after they left houses and estates behind. The desert stretched out ahead, showing nothing but the rough terrain and sparse plants. Saavik thought how good it looked, even now, taking on a luster of light colors and patches of dark as a compliment to the red sky.

"Whatta hellhole," Mekhai said as he only partially climbed out of the groundcar. "Whatta are we doin' here? I don' see nothin'."

"This is the first point they could have taken. They would have left any transport here and walked to wherever they chose to go."

No sign of any other vehicle. They must have used public transportation if they came here at all.

"Then why'd we stop? C'mon, get back in here and let's go."

Saavik reminded herself that he was trying to help and honestly didn't know anything about Vulcan. "It is reserved for foot traffic only, Mekhai, for those beginning a pilgrimage into the desert. We will enter it but search away from the established path. We will not need to go far."

"How come?"

She activated the tricorder and began her scan. "For two reasons. The first is Subcommander Soluk will have already contacted the emergency station that lies farther into the desert. They would have communicated if they had any sign of Micar and the others by now. Second, Micar especially suffers too greatly from Phase III. He will not have the strength to travel a long way. Instead, he and the others will rely on journeying away from the path instead of distance to avoid being found."

"Think they're together?" Mekhai looked around. "Forget it. They're together."

She asked him to bring the emergency kit and started off on her proposed sweep. The tricorder picked up nothing as they walked but the small animal life keeping out their way. The desert breeze had already reached out and swept away any footprints that might have been left behind.

The emergency kit crashed into her head and drove her to the ground. Mekhai clubbed her with it again, the blow lifting her into the air and spinning her so she landed on her face. He flung the bag away and crouched behind her, grabbing her neck and jerking her head back to snarl in her ear.

"I didn' say no revenge, _Sa'Av Ik!_ Not when you kept torturin' me on the ship." He drove a fist into the base of her spine. "I told Soluk nothin'! Nobody knows you're out here! Nobody's comin' lookin'!"

He struck with exacting damage to her body. He fought for a living and even if Hellguard had never taught him how to attack her, his sport had. He drove the air out of her lungs and kept her down on her knees with ramming strikes to her kidneys, more to the spine and the backs of her legs, hitting hard and fast before he buried his hand into her hair and pulled. "How do you like it now!"

He curved along her back and his chest pressed against her as he breathed heavily. His left hand supported his weight and lay right next to hers.

...The way Micar's had, years ago on Hellguard. All five fingers still on the hand as he grabbed her the same way, an arm around her throat, forcing her down and trapping her on all fours. The contact forced his emotions into her unshielded mind like a hammer. They never were taught that they were telepaths, and their abilities knew no discipline. She couldn't understand the word for lust then or the odd, gnawing hunger burning Micar, but it felt like something crawled along her skin and then thrust in, branding her as his victim. She had looked down where his other hand held him up and next to it, a large rock. Desperate, she grabbed it and slammed it on his hand, not knowing until the next day that his scream and his blood came from the piece of jagged metal buried in the stone, its sharp edge severing his one finger. His shouts brought the Vulcans, but she ran to her bolt hole, not seeing them remove the last bit of skin holding the destroyed finger onto his hand and use their healing abilities to staunch the flow of blood. Saavik had stayed hidden, tight in a ball, hugging herself, not able to get rid of that taint that ravaged her or the scream from his mind. T'Pren came to her, wiped away Micar's blood from her arms and held her, touching certain spots on her hands and face to make the shaking stop.

No rock laid here next to Mekhai's hand. She didn't need it. He was far stronger physically, and he caught her offguard. Not to mention, his being a professional fighter. But he didn't study Vulcan techniques, and he never should have left her hands free. No one of this planet would have made that mistake and it was her only chance.

She had to move fast. Blood already dripped from the cut next to her eye into the sand.

She heaved up under his weight as she grabbed his left wrist and then snatched the right buried in her hair. She hit the pressure points, numbing his arms up to the elbow. The one dropped from her neck as his weight fell on her back from his left hand toppling. She twisted at the waist and elbowed him hard to the side of the head. He dropped off of her and she leapt to her feet. He kicked at her legs and then swept them. She managed to jump into a roll over his side and then immediately fell back, leveraging him underneath her, and striking the correct nerves in the junction of his neck and shoulder. He collapsed.

She hesitated, but then grabbed an arm and hefted him across her shoulders, staggering away before balancing him properly. Just in time. The sand boiled and twisted. The sand grubs, the _ivnolhti_, crawled out and feasted on the emerald blood drops, craving more. They could strip a le-metya to the bone in seconds.

If Mekhai had moved faster... if he hadn't stopped to gloat... but thinking about what hadn't happened was pointless and she had a long walk back to the groundcar with a heavy burden. She settled his weight more comfortably and thought darkly that he was fortunate _she_ wasn't looking for retaliations or she'd leave him here!

That would be illogical, of course, so she turned in the sand and got her bearings. As she breathed in deeply and settled him again on her shoulders, a small voice whispered that the madness had never come during the attack. She had kept Hellguard at bay, something she thought impossible in these last few days.

_Triumph, _she reminded herself, _is also illogical_.

Their fight had taken them away from where they had been walking. She scanned the area for the way they came, considering how she was going to pick up the tricorder and the emergency kit without dropping Mekhai when something in the distance caught her eye.

It was far enough away that she couldn't be sure, but it looked like a stack of clothing secured against a desert plant.


	25. Chapter 25

Amanda's voice rose in pitch. "Do we know who?"

The sound echoed around the Phase III ward. Heads came up around the room, except for one patient who was too weak so he scraped his head across the bed to drop down in their direction. Rrelthiz swished her tail in sharp snaps and nearly rattled her throat sac in the same pitch as Amanda's voice.

Sarek spoke before anyone could answer the question. "Perhaps we should move to another room for this discussion."

McCoy bounced inside his shoes while he waited to hear from the desert party and beat Rrelthiz in saying, "I need to stay here in case those patients come in."

"Bones," Kirk interrupted. "There must be a room where we can talk but you're still available."

The doctor grumbled, exchanging a look with the Carreon who understood, but they really didn't need to wait in the ward. They jerked their heads for everyone to follow. T'Mes and Soluk had been discussing what had happened when Amanda and Sarek came in for a status report on the stasis chamber attacks. If they hadn't, they wouldn't have known about the missing people.

Rrelthiz could tell that didn't sit well with Amanda.

So a large knot of people moved into an exam room off of the main ward. The door had a window at the top where McCoy parked himself and Rrelthiz with him. They had a clear view of both rooms from there. T'Mes waited until they were all inside before she answered. "Ny'Jul, Micar, Eitan, and Kf'iskjyk are missing as well as Saavik and Mekhai -- six in all."

Amanda stiffened at Saavik's name.

"However," T'Mes continued, "we have conflicting testimonies. Mekhai informed Soluk that he was investigating Eitan's and the others' disappearances by visiting their homes. He also stated that he suspected Saavik was reporting on a conversation with the _Aerfen _while the nurse on duty stated Saavik took equipment intending to go to the desert herself."

_The nurse would not lie_, Rrelthiz thought. _She is Vulcan. And we know the tricorder and emergency kit are not in the inventory._ _Saavik went to the desert. Nest Mother, watch over her!_

She warbled, making a noise and motion with her throat while Leonard plastered himself to the window in the door. But they weren't telepaths; they couldn't reach out with their worry and bring the missing people home.

Kirk bit the inside of his lip as if Rrelthiz's warble told him something he had to consider. "So at least four of them," he said to T'Mes, "are probably in the desert. And you think you found them?"

Soluk said, "Yes. Stron is out there now."

Amanda looked at Sarek. _To steady herself_, Rrelthiz thought. "Are they alive?"

T'Mes replied, "We know nothing further. Stron will report soon."

It took agonizing minutes before Commander Stron did report. Kirk told everyone else about Saavik's conversation with Hunter including the unknown Vulcan who had come onboard and not only broke into her security access, but managed to make Saavik forget all about him at the same time.

Dark clouds grew over Sarek's expression as he listened, but his voice stayed clear. "The guard at the stasis chambers, he also has no memory of the security breach at his station. Is that not correct?"

McCoy grumbled under his breath, which meant every Vulcan still heard him. So did Rrelthiz. "He's lying."

"Is he?" Sarek asked, questioning McCoy's certainty as much as the guard's telling the truth. Or so Relthiz thought.

"We'd have found out," the doctor insisted, "but we got Saavik's report and came here to talk with her. We found this new crisis waiting for us."

Stron's call ended the discussion. "We have found all six. Immediate transport to the hospital is commencing."

Amanda sagged - in relief or at the breaking point?

T'Mes reached the comm panel. "Casualties?" she asked her husband.

"Four are dead, overexposure to the sun. It appears to be suicide."

Spock's head came up sharply, but he said nothing and stayed focused on listening to the rest of the report. Amanda started to say something, and Rrelthiz wondered if they had the same question: _Which four are dead? _

Stron kept talking; he couldn't see the room's reactions. The dim sound of voices issuing and acknowledging orders on his end of the line came through as background noise. "Despite the deaths, the hospital asked for the immediate transport in the event we missed a life sign."

"Not her," Amanda whispered. It was so low that Kirk and McCoy missed it. "Please, not _her._"

_Saavik._ Rrelthiz wanted to argue that her friend would never choose to do such a thing. After all, when she and Saavik had met, the Vulcan had saved her honor and her life by talking Rrelthiz out of committing such a suicide. All those people on the _Enterprise_, ill and dead, because _she_ had made a mistake with the replicator, cutting herself on a glass causing her blood, mixed with her emollient, to get into the protein matter used to create meat. It formed an agent that acted like a virus in the crew. Some people _died_ because of her and she went to commit an honorable suicide to make reparations. Saavik had stopped her.

_Rrelthiz, your solution will harm us all. You will hurt the trainees who are ill because, logically, you are the one most capable of helping us. We need you. We don't leave our friends behind to struggle without us._

Saavik had to see, she _had_ to, that if she committed suicide now, she left behind all the people who worried about her -- _yes, even Vulcans worry for her_ -- to fight alone against the killer without her. _She must see it_.

Human ears missed what Amanda had said, but not the Vulcan ones. They heard as much as Rrelthiz did and Amanda finally realized she had spoken out loud. Her face turned sickened. "I'm sorry. I never should single out one person when others are suffering too. Stron, which four are dead?"

_She still begs that her favorite was spared. She cannot help it._

Amanda's question was answered as Saavik burst through the ward doors, drawing everyone's instant attention. Green blood darkened and caked in a rivulet by her eye and raw marks disfigured her throat. Her stained clothes were torn and scraped. She cast her eyes around and latched on to McCoy as he barreled out of the exam room, but she stopped him before he got far. "Doctor, they request your help in the Trauma Room One."

He blew out an explosive breath when he saw her and stopped to examine her dried cuts. She avoided his hands. "These are minor. However, the other four -- if you have never seen such a death, you should prepare yourself."

He pointed to a couple nurses to come with him and they disappeared out the doors. Rrelthiz backed up into the exam room – she and all the others starting to pour out after her – and motioned Saavik to follow. She grabbed a small kit from her belt pouch and began working around her friend's eye. Saavik tried to shake off the Carreon too with, "They need you as well, Rrelthiz", but the healer wouldn't have any of it.

"I will go, friend Saavik, but they can spare me while I examine you. They have many to help them already." She had worked on Vulcans for quite a while now, so the hot and dry feel to Saavik's skin wasn't a surprise to Rrelthiz's cool, moist touch.

Amanda yelled, "What you were _doing_ out there!"

Sarek said quietly, "Amanda". She made a sharp gesture that cast his eyebrows up his forehead, but he said nothing else.

Rrelthiz worked on the head wound, so Saavik could not turn around. She never once blinked or fluttered her lashes, not even out of reflex, at the seven deadly talons that fingered her eye.

_That is her deep trust in me _and Rrelthiz gave a low trill as a smile.

"Amanda, clearly I needed to investigate if my theory regarding Micar, Ny'Jul, Eitan, and Kf'iskjyk was true. What other reason would I have?"

Amanda opened her mouth and something like a small sob sneaked out. She clamped her mouth shut, lines gouging hard traces around her lips.

Saavik jerked her head at the sound, and Rrelthiz bit back on her first impulse to snap. She had almost stabbed the eye. "Saavik, you must stand still. Also, stop your healing processes. Let me fix these wounds. They then will heal without scars."

_Not that you would care about another scar, my friend._

That left Saavik with nothing but her voice to address Amanda since her body language was silenced by the exam. So she spoke very carefully. "Amanda... did you believe I was one of the four dead?"

A fine quiver ran down the suddenly old woman's body or was Rrelthiz imagining it? Sarek answered for his wife. "We had few details including a lack of names."

Rrelthiz dropped bloodied wipes on an instrument tray and whispered, "Your eye is fixed. Move your head if you wish, but I will work on your throat."

Saavik looked at Spock.

"No," he answered the silent question. "I did not know your purpose in the desert. However, I calculated that it was to find the others, not to commit _kalifee v'rekor_ yourself. As I said before, I do have most of my memories. One of them is, you 'do not go gently into that good night'."

A corner of her mouth almost -- almost -- lifted in a smile. "Rage against the dying of the light?" she quoted with him. "Dylan Thomas. It does sound like me."

He lifted an eyebrow in agreement and somberly nodded out towards the ward. "We also have four collections of belongings and you would not leave your personal affects here."

She sobered. "The way they left their the personal belongings by their hospital beds - they left their clothing in the same way to mark their trail into the desert. I followed it."

_A bad death. A sad one – no, I can make no judgment when I did not live the life that caused such a decision._

Out loud, she said, "What other injuries do you have, Saavik?"

"Rrelthiz--"

"Do not argue. _Tell_ me. You need to be in the best health possible." The year until Phase III would pass soon enough, and the better the shape Saavik was in when it struck, the better she would fare until they had a cure.

But that wasn't making the Vulcan give in, so Rrelthiz leaned forward and whispered in her friend's ear. "Let me actually heal someone, my friend. I have not done so since I arrived on your planet."

Saavik gave her a quick look, but then listed where to check for any injuries.

The ward doors opened for Mekhai this time and T'Ahiyya at his elbow. Rrelthiz glanced up from scanning Saavik's lower back where a nasty mark and a bloody scrape -- from the sand? -- covered from the base of the spine out to the kidneys. Mekhai had a bruise on his temple, but that was it and T'Ahiyya already led him to a second exam room. The Carreon healer glanced up and caught Saavik watching him through the door as he stared back until he was out of sight.

Those marks – she couldn't shake the thought that they were familiar, but she couldn't grasp it. Saavik's neck, for instance, had four darker spots on one side and one on the other side... but why? Most of her work was with her own species... would that help? She tried imagining her friend was a Carreon – and the image snapped into place. If someone like Rrelthiz had done this, puncture wounds from the talons would dot the darker marks. A _hand_ had grabbed Saavik's throat! The darker marks where fingers had dug into the skin. And the other places... the worst contusions covered vulnerable areas on her body.

But before the healer could say anything, Spock asked Saavik, "How were you hurt? Is this from your attempt to rescue Ny'Jul and the others?"

"No. Mekhai attacked me."

"_What?_" Amanda shouted before thinking about it. "Check her!" she snapped at Rrelthiz.

"I already am," the Carreon nearly snarled, not at Saavik or Amanda, but at Mekhai in the other room. She would heal any wounds her friend had, and then – her tail thrashed hard.

"How badly are you hurt? Rrelthiz! What do you see, how bad is she?"

"Amanda," Saavik said, although not as indulgent as before, "I have already stated that I am well. The injuries are extremely minor. Mekhai did not succeed in his attack. I overcame him before he could inflict any serious damage."

Soluk and T'Mes had exchanged a glance when she first said Mekhai had attacked her. Rrelthiz demanded to know what happened, but it got buried in Sarek, Amanda, Spock, and everyone else calling out the same thing.

"You overcame him? How? Are you sure you're all right!"

"What reason did he give for this attack? Is it part of the deaths in the desert?"

"Why did you not call for help immediately?"

"Saavik!" Kirk finally got out above the others. He took a breath when everyone else subsided to let him talk. "Report."

She explained everything, from the moment she decided to come to the Phase III ward to Mekhai's attack and her finding the first marker. It turned out to be Micar's clothes and three more carefully piled robes had been further along the path. Micar had led the other three and proved his commitment to dying by disrobing first. Eitan, Ny'Jul, and Kf'iskjyk had followed him without hesitation.

Soluk listened without comment and then informed T'Mes he would guard over Mekhai.

Kirk spoke, "Saavik, Stron said they thought it was suicide?"

Spock added, "_Kalifee v'rekor_. However, in the manner you once described to me."

She nodded although he hadn't asked a question. "They exposed themselves to the sun in order to die. The emergency team speculates their weakened conditions speeded their deaths or we would have found them alive."

Kirk shook his head. "I don't get it."

Spock replied, "It means 'battle with the desert'. It was once a way a Vulcan brought a quicker death so they would not be a burden to their clan. However, on Hellguard, certain Vulcans chose it rather than die by the Romulans' means. It is noted in the reports you read, Captain."

"The clothing piled that way? You called it a marker," Rrelthiz asked, but with one look at Saavik, she wished she had said nothing. How could she forget the way her friend had talked about her horrible colony?

But of course, Saavik was Saavik and she answered. "On Hellguard, a Vulcan would meld with another to transfer their katra. They stacked their clothing and anything personal they still had in the place where they stepped into the desert. I do not know if was true in the nomad times or if it has symbolic meaning. I only know each Vulcan who chose this death on the colony did it. It is why Micar did it here and in the desert itself, to mark this place as where he made his decision to commit _kalifee v'rekor_ and the site where he did it."

Kirk took a sudden step forward. "You think this is tied into the disease? Another attack?"

Saavik looked at a blank spot on the floor and saw something in the past that only she could see. She came back to the present. "I do."

Sarek asked her, even as Amanda drew closer and hovered in orbit with Rrelthiz around Saavik. "Why do you say so?"

"Whether or not leaving belongings behind is symbolic in kalifee v'rekor, _Micar_ gave it symbolism. It was deliberately meant to represent how certain Vulcans died on Hellguard, the same way the entire disease represents them." Sarek started to respond, but Spock, who had never stopped watching her, held up a hand to forestall his father from interrupting. "And yet..."

Spock's hand still held in the air, so he was the one to gently probe. "And yet?"

"... I would not have said they would have taken this course. After the presentation, they each spoke of their plans for what remaining time they had to live. These plans were integral to them."

Kirk said, "Maybe they only said it to keep people from guessing the truth."

"They did not lie, Captain."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Saavik, people, even Vulcans, can do something they wouldn't normally do when they're in these kind of circumstances."

"I did not say they would not lie because they were Vulcans, sir. I said it because I was there. I heard how important these plans were to them. They did not have to say anything, they could have said they did not know what choices they had made. They did not lie."

"And yet," Spock said, Rrelthiz wondering if he deliberately used Saavik's words to make his point, "shortly afterwards, they decided to commit these suicides."

"I cannot explain the sudden change in judgment."

Rrelthiz asked, "Could not have someone convinced them?"

"You refer to the killer?"

"Or someone working with him. "

Saavik frowned. "If this was so, it would have happened either as they left the presentation for the ward or right in the room. Either way, anyone here or walking with them would have seen it."

T'Mes grabbed her tricorder. "I will interview them" and with no other preamble, she went to the first filled bed.

"Saavik, Spock," Kirk said. He glanced in the direction of the exam room next door. "Could Mekhai have done this?"

Saavik answered, "They would not have listened to him, Captain."

He took his lip between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed it for a minute. "All right, let's see if Stron has any news for us."

Spock turned away from them as they left the exam room. "I cannot accompany you, Captain. Mekhai and his attack need my attention."

"Spock," Saavik called out and when it didn't work, "_Captain._ I will deal with Mekhai."

"No further discussion, Saavik." And with only that, he simply walked off into the second exam room.

Kirk smiled at Saavik's strangled expression. "I know exactly what you mean. Come with me."

He strode hard and fast out of the ward doors and crashed against a gurney. Someone lay on it, but was covered by a sheet. A hand dropped limply and banged on the metal rungs. One finger was missing from it.

"Jim!" McCoy yelled and started running around the gurney to put the dead man's hand back under the blanket. But Saavik was suddenly there. McCoy fumed at his captain. "We wanted to keep them out of sight from everyone else."

Kirk mumbled an apology, especially as the other covered bodies got ahead of Micar's. Stron was at the side of the first gurney. "Go, Bones. We have this one."

"I will, Captain." Saavik stood by the body, making no other move.

"Saavik--"

"Sir... I... prefer it this way."

He nodded and caught up with McCoy. Rrelthiz came quietly to Saavik's shoulder and wasn't surprised to find Amanda on the other side. Sarek stepped around them.

"Their families need to be informed," he said quietly and left.

Rrelthiz and Amanda said nothing and let Saavik take her time.

"He wanted to speak with me," she finally spoke. "Before the presentation. I do not know why. ...But I think it was an apology."

Amanda drew closer. "Then it was a good thing."

"I didn't let him talk. I am only surmising." Rrelthiz didn't ask her why she hadn't let him talk and neither did Amanda. The question asked itself. "What was its point? Why say anything? We had all agreed to leave the past alone."

Amanda's voice sounded very tender. "You know as well as anyone, maybe better than anyone, that it doesn't always work that way."

Saavik didn't look at her and said nothing else.

"Friend Saavik, did this Micar harm you in some way?" Rrelthiz thought she'd get no answer and she was right. "Then perhaps his point was to be responsible. To make reparations at least in words."

"After all this time?" Saavik asked. She still looked down at the covered body. "And why to me?"

"I cannot know," Rrelthiz said. "Perhaps the disease made him need the apology as much as you. Maybe he had a reminder of you in particular? Even you coming here to Vulcan at this time?"

Saavik's head swung sharply. "A reminder?"

"Yes, something that made him focus on you. Or maybe he did speak to the others and you do not know. He would not die without making that responsibility to anyone he wronged -- or to you specifically."

"But he did die." Amanda and Rrelthiz didn't have to say it for her. "And I refused him." Saavik picked up the lifeless hand, cupping hers into the palm so the empty finger socket became even more prominent. "I refused him, even with the reminder."

"Friend Saavik..."

Saavik tucked the hand under the cover again. Her shoulders were up and she was back to her normal bearing. "Amanda, remain here with Rrelthiz. I must deal with Mekhai and his attack."

"Let Soluk and Spock take care of him! I don't want you getting anywhere near him again!"

"Amanda, if I am correct, he is not a danger to anyone else and what I will do will neutralize the danger to myself. However, if I am wrong, I do not want anyone else involved."

"You are not going in there alone!"

"As you stated, Amanda, Soluk and Spock are there as well as Nurse T'Ahiyya. Remain here." She left before any more arguing could happen.

Amanda shot a look at Rrelthiz who forestalled whatever the woman was about to say. "You need not say it." She scurried after Saavik whose head turned at the sound of talons on the floor.

"Rrelthiz--"

"Save your strength, friend Saavik. I am with you."

She tried to get one step ahead, especially as they entered the exam room where Mekhai was, but Saavik's strides never allowed it.

Spock stopped talking when they came in, but Saavik only walked to the foot of the diagnostic bed. "Mekhai."

He laid down as if he didn't even know she was in the room. Soluk began going to the computer, maybe to record what was going to happen. _So they have Saavik's charges on record_, Rrelthiz guessed, but her Vulcan friend held up a hand, quietly asking the Subcommander to hold off.

No one said anything, only the scanner above Mekhai's head with all its chirps and heartbeat made any noise. She waited him out and at long last, he couldn't take it. His eyes flicked down to look at her and only then did she talk.

"I am here to apologize, Mekhai."

Rrelthiz's tail banged into a cabinet, making her jump all over again. She couldn't even tear away to how Captain Spock reacted. Mekhai scrambled to sit up on the bed and stared at Saavik.

"Here in front of all these witnesses, I take responsibility for having wronged you. Each survivor vowed to stop our violent behavior once we left the colony, but I still attacked you on the _Symmetry_. Not only am I guilty for those attacks, I also rebuffed you're claiming it. You reminded me of this when you landed on Vulcan, but I again disregarded you. I was wrong for each count. I say this to you sincerely - I am sorry."

If she had told him the secret of the universe, he could not have been more stunned. Rrelthiz felt the same way, then she gave a happy flutter. How lucky she was to have met this fine friend.

Saavik took a step closer to the bed. Mekhai's stare turned wary.

"I suspect it could not have been easy for you in the foster home after I lived there."

He swallowed.

"Or in the school after I attended there. You said they spoke highly of me. It gave you another reminder to my attacks and must have appeared as one more source disregarding your own view of me."

He turned away, but that brought him face to face with Spock's hard look. He dropped his head to stare at the floor, nothing more than a wounded boy.

_A very hurt boy,_ Rrelthiz thought. _It's a bad bond linking them_.

"If my taking responsibility and apology do not serve enough as amends, you can demand more."

Soluk at last stepped away from the wall. "Saavik can wave away the right to charge you for attacking her today."

But she shook her head. "No, today is a separate issue. It will not be a part of what we are discussing."

Mekhai's eyes glanced surreptitiously at Soluk then slid across the floor and climbed up Spock. They dropped again.

Saavik bent her head down and whispered something so low that Rrelthiz could not even guess what she said, but Mekhai's eyes came slowly up. It took a long moment during which Saavik's own head came up with him until they were looking at each other.

"I repeat," she said, "I am sincere."

Mekhai chewed on his tongue and his teeth ground together. He mumbled, "It's enough. I don' need nothin' else."

She nodded again as somber as a Vulcan elder at a tribunal. "You do me a kindness." She left it there and he got up from the bed. He got one step away before she got in his path.

"Now we will agree that we move forward from this point. Any further attacks will not be tolerated."

He clenched his hands into fists, the leather gloves creaking, and his chest rose, swelling the vest. She gave not one inch, but she didn't push that strength down against him like she had before when they confronted each other. Slowly, oh so slowly, his fists unclenched and a trace of the thug disappeared, replaced by a hint of maturity. Maybe even a peek of his Vulcan parent. "You got my promise. No more fightin'." In the next second, he grinned. "_Sa'Av Ik."_

_Is that her true name_? Rrelthiz wondered. But Saavik hadn't given it to her, so she would not use it. In fact, Saavik bristled and then gave something like a sigh along with a look that told the male his humor was infantile. His grin grew even bigger and then faded with her next words.

"One more matter, Mekhai. I have made my choice with the deaths of Ny'Jul, Micar, Eitan, and Kf'iskjyk. I will stay here."

Spock's eyebrow shot up. She didn't miss it.

"Inform Jdehn I cannot accompany her as a member of her crew."

_You were going to fly with Jdehn? That does not sound like you, friend Saavik._

Mekhai didn't like it, but Spock eyed him now so he only said, "Got it."

Rrelthiz left with Saavik. They didn't get far. Spock was right on their heels. "Saavik."

She closed her eyes and spoke under her breath to the small healer, "I thought he would become suspect."

Rrelthiz had no idea what that meant, but she moved away to give them privacy.

T'Mes went from one patient to another. She caught sight of the Carreon and shook her head. No one so far had seen anything that would help. The remaining interviews wouldn't take long. The ward was bare. Only four beds were filled.

_And only four others are alive outside of these beds._

All the others were gone. She had not stopped those deaths from happening.

She left to join Leonard and the other healers.

* * *

The events where Rrelthiz nearly commits honorable suicide and Saavik's quotes are from _Just A Little Training Cruise _by A.C. Crispin and is published in the "Enterprise Logs" anthology. 


	26. Chapter 26

Time to take stock.

Twenty-five dead. The offense on the stasis chambers had been a success. Micar, his disciple Eitan, Kf'iskjyk, and Ny'Jul had been convinced to commit _kalifee v'rekor_ in the same style Vulcans had been forced into on Hellguard.

He took a deep breath. His plan was back on track.

No one could be allowed to forget the nightmares committed against the innocent on the Romulan colony. Not the torments that the disease copied, not the suicides under the sun that some Vulcans chose so they could rob the Romulans of the one thing they still owned for themselves: their deaths. And not the last indignity some had suffered.

He had almost forgotten -- he _had_ forgotten -- the last two horrors, but that had been corrected. Both of them. The sun suicides had happened and the other one was set; it would happen in its own time.

Plus, four of the hybrids that still lived failed more and more each moment. Their time left was marked in days. The Phase III ward became as empty as the small Hall of Ancient Thought at the Hellguard memorial, with Micar's painting serving as the headstone above the empty beds.

The medical team still had no idea what to do and they still looked in the wrong direction for a cure. If they continued this way for another week or two, they would be too late. Not even Arik or Jdehn or the other two not being in Phase III would matter. He had taken care of that too.

Even Jdehn taking off this morning in her ship with Mekhai and a couple others was no trouble. They wouldn't get far.

He had to be patient. When he wasn't, look at the mistakes he made.

The security systems had a glitch where the footage of his shutting down the ten stasis chambers was wiped out. The guard was being questioned now, not that he could tell them anything, but the _mistake_ had been made. Just like the one on Saavik's ship: destroying all the records about his coming onboard had left a trail.

His hands clenched. He knew he couldn't manipulate technology at that level. He thought he had compensated for that, but instead, he had left a track and his pursuers closed in. They had stopped looking in the Romulan Empire and outside of Vulcan. They knew he was here and walking amongst them. They spread a net that expanded further and further, waiting to snare him in his next move. That one, Uhura, sent her watchdog programs into every cranny so if he even monitored someone else's communications, like he had when Saavik contacted her, she'd trap him. Spock's presence waited all over the networks, poised for anyone to access the Hellguard files. And T'Pau, _T'Pau_, had put an entire contingent of the VSE at Sarek's discretion.

They didn't stop there. They weren't satisfied in waiting for him to venture out. They came after him. They dug and probed and questioned.

Except their security measures had one weak point: they depended on him surfacing. But he had copied all the files he needed long ago, so he didn't have to risk Spock detecting him by trying to get them now, and with all his other plans set, he could sink out of notice. Unless something went terribly wrong again, he didn't need to venture out so they would not discover who he was.

_Would it matter?_ he reminded himself. He never expected to survive this. Obviously not. That was fine. He had done his best to make sure his unknowing accomplice on the medical team would not suffer punishment; he was innocent after all. As for his own destruction, the price had to be paid.

Why didn't anyone else see that? Especially that Kirk and McCoy. After all, debates once again came to a head over sentient creatures being used in ghastly experiments to further some scientific cause. Some argued that even though the results came at a terrible cost, they benefitted other lives. That the products from the experiments weren't bad because of the evil that had created them. Using them would bring some good out of the nightmare.

But the other side had argued just as strongly and in the end won when one doctor insisted:

_Some of you accuse me saying I would being arguing differently if I or someone that I cared about would be helped by the products of these experiments. But I would not. I would refuse them as something immoral. No one can benefit by other people's suffering. If we're going to call ourselves a civilized, ethical people, we cannot allow whatever comes out of these experiments to taint the quality of society we have created. If we do anything else, if we don't destroy the creations of these tortures, we make ourselves as guilty and criminal as the people who carried out them out. The crime can never go away when its spoils are allowed to exist! _

How he had listened enthralled as the man spoke. The statement had awakened him. The doctor who had made that argument spoke about Hellguard even though he knew nothing of its existence. His words shed a spotlight like a finger of judgment on everyone allowing the colony's evil acts and what they had conceived to exist. It charged for someone to make the hard decision, like that doctor had, to wipe out those creations.

It showed him and so many others the truth, including a name noted in the reports because of its notoriety: Dr. Leonard McCoy. So why did the man suddenly change sides and argue for what he had called immoral and unethical? Why did he try to stop the action he had insisted must be done?

It made no more sense than the Vulcans who had changed their own attitude. They had seen the same truth that he had, but now some drew closer around Hellguard's creations to support them, to _mourn_ them! How could they have forgotten the truth? That he respected Life as much as they did and _that's_ why he did this.

If only he had found a way to bring justice to the Romulans as well, especially now that they discovered one Hellguard scientist still lived. But he couldn't do everything. Someone else would have to shoulder that crusade. He had taken care of what Hellguard cruelly begat at the price of too many lives.

But that didn't matter. He did not need someone else to acknowledge he was on the side of justice. He didn't do this for glory or to be hailed as a hero. He did it because it was the right thing to do.


	27. Chapter 27

Kirk stayed in his chair at the desk behind Spock's and let him do his job. Their once barren little office became a command center more and more with the increasing level of personnel, stations, and even the underlying atmosphere. The large computer displays on the walls updated now with all the incoming information from their own investigation and the VSE. Data marched line by line and occasionally flashing to a different color: red when a record alerted of a possible hit, yellow while someone investigated the alert, and blue when it was ruled out. The record then returned to its normal color.

Spock switched to the second image and brought it up on his station. "And this one?"

Nurse Dasan leaned closer to his own screen from where he sat in one of the _USS Aerfen_'s conference rooms. Two pairs of uniformed hips filled the space behind him on the monitor. Only their waists showed since they stood up behind his seat and the camera pickups where focused on him, but Dannan Stuart and Lauren Warfield had identified themselves at the beginning of the call.

Dasan stared hard at the image Spock had created. "No, sir, I don't think that's him either."

Kirk jerked his head to where Uhura sat monitoring the comm line. She shook her head in a silent 'no'. No one listened in on their conversation about who had come on board the _Aerfen_ and infected Saavik. So far. Lieutenant Lynne Hoskins monitored communications on her side, in case whoever it was tried routing through an outside source to break in on the remote end of the line.

Kirk pinched his lower lip and waited. He took off the antique glasses that he had been using to read their notes, since his hazel eyes remained stubbornly immune to modern cures for poor close-up vision. He could see Spock's display without them.

"No, sir," Dasan said. He squinted his green eyes, nearly making them disappear in the planes of his pale skin. His red hair was cropped close and emphasized a large forehead that wrinkled in thought. "I don't think that's him either, Captain Spock."

"You are uncertain?"

"It's tough, sir. I only saw the Vulcan for a few seconds and the people in these pictures look a lot alike, especially from the back. It's hard narrowing it down."

Spock closed the fabricated image that displayed a Vulcan male from the rear standing next to Saavik onboard the _Aerfen. _That side of his display went black and reflected him flicking up a winged eyebrow.

Uhura all but whispered, "Sir, an incoming message from Subcommander Soluk." She didn't need to handle routine communications, but Starfleet Command had sent her recall orders. She had accomplished what she had come here to do and important work waited for her. She left the next day for Earth, so she made the most of today; she hated saying goodbye again.

So did Kirk.

He jammed the glasses back on and took a quick look at his station. He had set it up to pull summary data from the larger screens. The data from Commander Stron's team still flowed in.

"Subcommander, this is Kirk. What did you find?"

Soluk's bearded features filled the box that opened on Spock's station. Uhura patched the communication to _Aerfen_ so they could hear as well. "We searched port authority files for private and commercial flights. We were unable to find records for any of the medical team leaving Vulcan for the _Aerfen_'s location. We are continuing the search."

"Can you cross-reference the medical team's records to see if they really were on the planet?"

"We are already doing so. We will contact you with our next update. Soluk out."

_A Vulcan of few words!_ It explained why the flow of records kept coming in from Stron's team; they already attacked the data again. Kirk checked the summary of the last search to see if it missed something he caught. It didn't. He didn't bother worrying if he bothered Soluk by suggesting something the VSE team had already thought about. If they considered it logical to confirm something they already knew when he suggested it, there was no problem. If they rolled their eyes – figuratively speaking – at illogical human behavior to mention the obvious, it wouldn't affect their work.

Spock tapped a few controls. "I will change the manner in which I exhibit the images, Nurse Dasan. You will now see them tabulated for you and you are enabled to toggle through their larger views."

"Thank you, sir. This is much better."

Leave it to the Vulcans to be so thorough that they had a full rotating view in each person's security file. Spock merely had plucked the rear angle and changed the brown healer's robes to the light gray traveling clothes Dasan had described.

Lauren Warfield dropped down into view of the camera pickups. "Why is Saavik in these?"

"Mr. Dasan saw this Vulcan in relation to Saavik. Inserting her into each image reduces the number of factors he has to recreate mentally, thereby increasing the probability they will trigger his memory of that moment. It also gives a measurement of each subject's height by displaying it in proportion to Saavik's own."

Dasan smiled. "They're very good. You got the background, even his clothes, like I remember."

"It is why I requested a detailed explanation of the event."

Dannan Stuart asked, "Has Saavik seen these?"

"She has viewed a modified set representing her point of view. It has not brought a recollection of the event."

_Which is why she's with Bones now. No memories of what happened to her and that headache..._

"Mr. Warfield, is there a problem?" Spock asked.

She had stood up after Spock explained about the photos and mumbled something to Dannan Stuart. She bent down again. "I said you do the whole 'I will explain this slowly so your little mind can understand it' more subtly than Saavik does."

"I never use the phrase 'little mind', Mr. Warfield, and I have more years of practice than Saavik."

Kirk stifled a grin.

Warfield nearly didn't. "That's probably it. That and -- this bending down is ridiculous! Hold on." She dragged a chair over and jostled Dasan in the process. He barely glanced over, staying focused on Spock's images instead. She plopped down into the chair, right behind his left shoulder. "There, that's better."

But Dannan Stuart stayed on her feet and crossed her arms. The _Aerfen_'s first officer wasn't joking, not one bit, for the same reason Kirk hadn't grinned and Warfield had stopped hers. Too much depended on this and the little bit of humor in the room died.

Kirk sat forward, his arms on his knees, and darted another glance at Uhura. If she had something, she would have said so, but the captain in him made look around and take in everyone's status. She had known him a long time, so she already looked over her shoulder and caught his eyes when they flicked in her direction. She shook her head again.

They had kept quiet about monitoring the comm line, and it would take someone of Uhura's expertise to figure it out by surveying the line. Their target had already shown he didn't have that level of technical skills. They had spread the news that the _Aerfen_ call was happening and why. It was all done with covert care so they didn't look obvious, but the killer had to know.

So where was he?

Still, if Dasan identified who had been with Saavik that day, they'd have their suspect. The young man closed down three of Spock's images. Kirk tried identifying each Vulcan without looking at the names. It _was_ hard guessing from seeing only the back.

"It's not this one." Dasan jabbed at the first photo as he closed it. "I think he was a little taller."

_Srre_. Kirk checked his guess against the name on Spock's display. He was right. It made sense that Srre was clear. He had been at Gol when Saavik was infected.

"And he was slimmer than this one."

_S'tvan. _Right again. Spock had only included the _Symmetry_ team's pediatrician to be thorough. They never really suspected him. He hadn't been a physician to any of the hybrid survivors in a number of years.

"And this one... the build is wrong. I don't mean this as an insult, but... is that a woman?"

Kirk blinked and then got up to stand at Spock's shoulder. It didn't help him to tell if Dasan was right, but when he glanced at the name--

_I'll be_--

Tu'ong.

"You are quite correct, Mr. Dasan. The Vulcan in this image is female. One with a thin build and who might have disguised herself as a male."

"Clever," Warfield muttered to herself.

"It's a good point, Captain Spock," Dasan agreed, "but it's not her. The shoulders were broader, for one thing. I'm not sure about this next one. I didn't think I saw any gray in his hair, but the rest of him is close so maybe I didn't notice the gray. Or maybe he disguised it."

_Sorel_. Kirk wished they could have ruled him out. He couldn't believe it was one of the healers who was responsible for Spock being safely conceived and born. But people had startled Kirk with their guilt before this.

"So that just leaves these two. It could be either one of them, I can't think of anything to narrow it down to one. It's three if you count that last one too. I'm sorry, Captain."

_Sa'd and Salok_. Salok was a medtech in the hospital. They hadn't thought he had the skills to create the disease, but he had matched all the other criteria.

Plus Sorel kept the question mark next to his name.

"You have no reason to apologize, Mr. Dasan," Spock said. "Dismissed."

The nurse's shoulders slumped and stayed that way, even after Warfield told him he had done a good job.

Dannan Stuart leaned down, bracing herself with one hand on the conference table. "Is that it? We're clear here."

That was their prearranged signal that Lynne Hoskins hadn't found anyone breaking into the comm line. Uhura gave one last signal: no.

Kirk faced the monitor and broke the bad news. "That's it."

But why? Why hadn't whoever it was they chased cared about what they were doing?

_Because he's winning_.

By a large margin. It was a sound tactical move. It showed how secure their quarry felt that he ignored what they were doing.

A bad sign.

"I'll update Hunter," Stuart said, "tell her we at least narrowed it down."

"Wait, _Aerfen_!" he called out before Stuart broke the connection. "Uhura, update Stron's people. Let them know to focus their search on Sa'd, Sorel, and Salok. Tell them our eyewitness narrowed it down to those three."

"Have they found anything?" Warfield asked. She moved to the edge of her chair.

"Not yet, but they're still searching. Their latest update shows they're referencing a list of names of associates, in case anyone on the medical team used one of those instead of their own. Or sent someone to act for them."

Stuart smacked a flat hand down on the conference table. It sounded loud even through the comm line. It foreshadowed the snarl in her voice, like thunder warning of a storm. "I am sick of losing to this guy."

Kirk couldn't agree more. So was he.

Spock answered her. "He is resourceful, but he has made errors. Those have already led to our eliminating the many to a mere few."

Kirk reassured her, "We've narrowed this down from the entire universe to three people on the medical team. We'll get him."

Warfield spoke in a whisper. "Before or after he kills someone else."

His stomach tightened like a fist.

She looked up as if just remembering they were there. "Sorry, I was just thinking out loud." She added, "Sirs," as an afterthought.

Lynne Hoskins came into view for the first time, slipping into Dasan's chair. "What more can we do?"

"Don't stop looking for answers," Kirk said.

Dannan stared hard through the screen. "The same to you. _Aerfen_ out."

Uhura spun around at Stuart's signoff. "Captain!"

"It's alright, Uhura. They're worried and cut off. They didn't mean any harm." He exchanged a look with Spock. "We need to take another look at Sa'd and Sorel."

An eyebrow went up over a dark, hooded eye. "Not Salok?"

"We can't let him slip from our notice, but the other two could have created the disease, Salok couldn't."

The station signaled someone contacting them. Uhura responded out of habit. "Sirs, it's Sarek."

Sarek did not waste time. "S'tvan contacted me. He was once asked to speak on behalf of the _Symmetry_ team at a meeting. Its topic was the damage done by insisting the hybrids be put with their families. Sa'd and Tu'ong spoke at this meeting."

Spock asked, "And the reason S'tvan did not mention this previously? Perhaps he harbored thoughts agreeing with the hybrids' detractors. He did on Hellguard."

But Kirk didn't want this bogged down with old battles. "Something made him think differently. The important thing for right now is, he gave us a valuable avenue to check out." He said to Sarek: "Sa'd and Tu'ong?"

Sarek nodded. Spock suddenly eyed his father. "Is there other news?"

Sarek spoke heavily. "Yes. Sorel was also there."

Kirk said nothing for a beat. Spock sat back in the chair and Kirk finally reached to end the call. "We'll be right there."

If purpose was the best word for the atmosphere in their office, pressure best described the air in Sorel's. It weighed heavy on everyone's shoulders like a metal press forcing them into a mold. Except for the three Vulcan healers who stood accused. They appeared as unconcerned and innocent as if they had been accused of not breathing. Right from Kirk's first charge, they dismissed the whole thing as nothing.

"We still require an explanation," Spock insisted. "Why were none of you forthcoming with this information? And why did you partake in such a function as this?"

McCoy came in and perched on the arm of a chair in the corner, saying nothing. No one knew Leonard McCoy better than Jim Kirk, but even he couldn't explain the doctor's behavior. _Bones never holds his emotion back. _Even Spock studied him and deliberately lifted one eyebrow. McCoy paid him no attention.

But he didn't answer Sa'd's question: "Leonard, do you wish something?"

"Just answer if it's true and then why. Because I don't understand the _logic_ behind a doctor doing this. I kept telling Jim that from the beginning." Now the barely held restraint on his rage and disappoint peeked out in the tight skin over his cheekbones and a slight quake in his voice. "So now just explain to me why."

Sorel frowned from where he stood behind his desk and then walked around. He offered them seats, but they refused. Only the healer himself and Tu'ong sat down, side by side, in front of his desk. Sa'd already sat down in a seat off on the side. Kirk moved in front of him since Spock already stood near the other two.

His fulfilling his role of host and the organized office with all its possessions aimed at the art of healing jarred against the accusations.

"Spock, your second question, which coincides with Leonard's request," Tu'ong began, still unpeturbed, "requires more explanation so let us address it first. Sorel and I were requested to be at that meeting in a medical capacity. To assuage damage done to victim's families by the presence of a hybrid survivor within the family group."

Kirk, showing more of McCoy's anger than the doctor did, asked, "Did you give that so-called evidence?"

"Naturally," Tu'ong responded. "Because damage was done. The hybrid's existence interfered with the mourning process. Just as is noted on your own planet in such cases."

"We also noted," Sorel spoke, "on it being too early to speak on the topic. Insufficient evidence existed to give long range theories. Here is our full report, Spock. Take it for your research. We noted damage also existed in victims' families where no hybrid lived with them."

Spock looked up from the report he read. "You also gave evidence on the damage done on the hybrids themselves."

"Why would we not, Spock?" Sorel asked. His brows drew together over his obsidian eyes. "We were there in a medical capacity. We would give all evidence on all parties involved."

Tu'ong added, "We suggested it may have been preferable to establish an interim environment for the survivors as they adjusted to life here. At least the waiting period would have given both they and their families time to adjust to the situation. Afterwards, they might have been better served being adopted by other Vulcan families applying for children. However, S'tven explained this was not an option."

Sorel said, "I believe this was because of your stipulations, Spock."

If he implied censure, Spock ignored it. "It was. In defense against the original plan which would have barred the survivors from claiming they are Vulcan."

Tu'ong's expression became as unyielding as a mountain. "A wrong and illogical proposal."

"And yet, those such as S'tvan proposed it."

"Ah, S'tvan." Sorel nodded. "I believe I see now. Illogical, yes, and it is fortunate you suggested an alternative. However, one can understand the initial reticence. I can also see why these other possibilities such as those Tu'ong proposed were not considered. Your focus centered on biological recognition, not adjustment and environment."

"Do you suggest, Sorel, that the view of S'tvan and the others was well founded?"

"I have already stated, Spock, that it was illogical. I only say that I am unable to speculate on my actions and thoughts if I endured what S'tvan has: the loss of a son and daughter to such a tragedy. For that matter, anyone so important to me. Can you, Spock?"

"I can," Kirk interrupted. "I lost a son through brutality." _Because of his murder, I was ready to let the entire Klingon people pay for it through their genocide._ "It took Spock to show me that I was wrong in my reaction and I fought him on it."

"Exactly, James. You understand my point, and your son did not suffer the other indignities our people abided on the Romulan colony."

_If David had been... forced, like the Vulcans were, could I accept that child? Could Carol? Especially right after we found out what happened to our son?_

"Leonard, you have a daughter, is that true?" Sorel asked.

McCoy didn't even raise his eyes as he stared in space, probably imagining Joanna in that situation. "I do. And no, I don't know what I would do either. I know what I'd like to think, that I'd accept someone like Saavik... but I don't know."

Kirk jumped in again. "My point, Sorel, was that Spock was right in showing me how wrong I was."

"Quite correct, as I said about his pointing out the illogic of not allowing the colony's survivors to claim their Vulcan heritage." Sorel glanced from Kirk to Spock and back again. "We seem to be at cross purposes even though we agree on these points."

Spock finally spoke again. "Then let us leave them for the moment." If he did it because he was defensive about tying the hands of the _Symmetry_ rescue, he wasn't saying so. It could be he honestly thought it best to get back to the point. Either way, he moved to Sa'd. "You haven't explained your presence at the meeting, Healer Sa'd."

"A childhood friend, Shal'haj, was lost with the _Perceptor_ crew."

Kirk asked quickly, "And one of the survivors is his son or daughter?"

Sa'd turned to him. "Of the twenty-nine hybrids who took the genetic scan, none were his child. However, this does not change the details of his capture and death. His loss and its circumstances alone damage his family. Also, four survivors did not take the scan, two of them a possible age to be his child."

Kirk leaned in closer. "And they don't want the hybrids around as a reminder. Neither do you. _That's_ why you went to that meeting."

But Sa'd only folded his hands. "On the contrary, Captain, the meeting's purpose was not to remove the hybrids. It was to discuss all effects on the families, both those who adjusted, and yes, those that did not. It was to seek the truth in all cases. The family of Shal'haj requested I go with them, in memory of my long friendship with him. They wanted to hear from the families who did have a hybrid child in the event Saavik and the other three sought the genetic scan."

Kirk barely kept himself from shouting. "Why didn't you tell us this when we first asked?

Sa'd was still calm. "You asked if we harbored, or did we know of anyone harboring, prejudice against the hybrids who organized into a system dedicated to taking action against the hybrids. This meeting was not such a group. Therefore, I saw no reason to mention it."

Kirk started pacing. It all fit, it was all explained. It made sense, but if a Vulcan _lied_, could he tell? They were masters of rationalization and explanation. Was he falling for that?

He stopped and exchanged a quick glance of agreement with Spock. "Maybe it wasn't a hate group, but I'm going to request that none of you work any longer on this project. If you're innocent, you can still see the _logic_ of my request. We have to think of the remaining patients."

Sa'd vaulted his eyebrows while Sorel... his black eyes were unreadable. McCoy spoke, heavy and sad. "Jim, they've already been taken off the team. Everyone was except for Rrelthiz and me after the stasis chambers were shutdown. We're briefing the new medical staff."

An alert interrupted them. Spock went to Sorel's desk and read the incoming message. He looked up sharply. "The _VSE Exploration_ has contacted the hospital. They needed to rescue the _Independence_. Jdehn and Mekhai have collapsed."


	28. Chapter 28

_Earlier…_

For the first time, Jdehn truly believed she would die. Death wasn't waiting for thirteen more months either or for Phase III. It came with a comet's speed, looking to take her in the next day.

The headache she had suffered after the Vulcan memorial was nothing compared to this pain battering hard on each nerve ending. Her life's energy drained nearly visibly out through her skin.

If death did come, _let it take me right here_, with the _Independent_'s controls under her hands and the long, half-moon console wrapped around her in an embrace. She had loved her ship ever since she first saw the bulbous freighter in the seller's bay. If it became her coffin, she couldn't pick a better one.

_What did I tell that Kirk?_

That she needed this one job to set her up for the next year she had to live? Her lips pulled back in a dark grin. _Got the job done._ Barely, and not at all if it weren't for the couple experienced hands she had taken on; Mekhai's muscle had helped, but since he had no experience, he was like a machine needing instructions. And Vi'hai... he couldn't do even that.

If Saavik had come with them, she could have taken over -- _no, don't even think about it_.

_My ship_. And they had gotten this far.

Now the _Independent_ had full coffers, but it wasn't going to get her through the next year. The Romulan laughter in her ears told her so with every draining heartbeat.

_It might not even get me to the Empire._

All their careful planning on how to slip through the Zone and what they would do if they got through. Getting her hired hands off the ship and to another job -- not that outrageous and pretty typical -- but still a detail she had to take care of as well as filing an innocent looking flight plan after she dropped her cargo; none of it mattered anymore.

The stars slipped by in a warp pattern. What could be more beautiful? If only pain didn't strap her down tighter than a safety harness, its heavy weight greater than any G-forces. She couldn't move, she didn't have the strength.

She suddenly missed Arik.

_Where did _that _come from!_ Okay, it made a sort of sense. He had been a sweetheart and she wasn't coming out of this alive. If she and the ship were going to go down, he was the kind of person you wanted fighting next to you -

Actually, he wasn't. Mekhai was the better person for that, but Arik was the perfect kind to soothe the soul at the end of the day.

She gave a sudden hearty laugh inside her head. _Look at me!_ Not long ago, no one who came from Hellguard would want each other anywhere near them. Now, she fought along side two of them and welcomed the touch of another.

Even with that, she didn't blame Arik for staying behind. She hoped he found whatever it was he wanted.

While she, well, she had a dying crew whose main goal was to live to get into the Empire. Just the thought of it put a fire back in her belly and sparked the passion again in her eyes. Revenge, justice: it didn't take a lot of strength, just a sharp mind and the remaining muscle in a finger to curl around a phaser trigger. And shine a spotlight on Hellguard's last scientist. Even Vi'hai still had that much life left in him.

Except, the Neutral Zone stayed far out of reach.

_The stars are so beautiful though_.

And a big part of what made them so wonderful was seeing them in the frame of her ship's port with no lights on the bridge except for the controls.

The new agony from the disease reached so high, it became another steady part of being alive... for the moment. Take a breath, hear the heartbeat in her side, feel the eternal existence of the pain and watch another star slip by.

What if she couldn't pull off their plan for crossing the Neutral Zone? In this condition? How could she breach it without getting killed by the Romulan cruisers on patrol?

_Ram 'em. _

Yeah… wherever that thought came from, it might work. It wouldn't be the _kv'sa_ who created her, but no one was innocent in the Empire. It'd be some kind of justice.

_Yeah, ram 'em. Take 'em out in a fireball_... maybe the way Hellguard had looked when it died.

She blinked away the daze of stars and ache. She didn't need the ship's chronometer to tell her she had been out for hours. The pain woke up with her, more fierce than ever.

_We should go back_.

No, what was she thinking! Go _back_? Where?

_Vulcan_. Even the thought of it, hot against the backdrop of cool space, made her feel better. Yes, go back. Everything called for her to go back, and answer Vulcan calling for them to come home. Not the way it had burned in her during Phase II. _Thank whoever watches over wayward mutts like me for that!_ This was a soft yearning for comfort and sanctuary.

Maybe that was why she had searched for Vulcan fleet ships out this way without knowing she had. The _Exploration_ wasn't far away. She--

--_had better put some distance between us! Or they'll figure out where we're going! C'mon, get your head in the game!_

The cool, dark bridge reassured her: she'd figure out a way, she'd get them across the Neutral Zone. The _Symmetry_ had done it, she could do it too. She--

Snapped out of drifting again. Her eyes blinked pain. Her body became a dead weight in her seat. She couldn't even slide a hand from one control to the other. Her head lolled to one shoulder and found Vi'hai on his cabin's monitor. He laid on his bunk, still and pale as death with only the thin remains of his chest barely moving with life. Her eyelids fell shut.

"Jdehn."

The hoarse sound of her name came from the floor. Her head fell off her shoulder and hung painfully below it. Mekhai crawled an inch more on the deckplate.

Every muscle strained in his body just to speak. "Don' do it."

"Wha'?" She didn't have his brawn to say anymore.

"Don' turn back."

She wasted too much energy in figuring out if he really said that or if she was unconscious again. "How di' ja know?"

"'Cause... 'cause it's all I wanna do too." He laughed with a sob and fell flat on the deck, not moving anymore.

The Romulans stayed out there and out of reach. If the _Independence _got to the Zone, it would carry only corpses. Or if they lived, they would be shot out of the stars with as little effort and significance as brushing lint off a jacket.

Insignificant... she had learned a lot since Hellguard. When she died, she'd be like that first girl they saw in that Ejarh's records, whatshername - Dhivael. Yeah, Jdehn would die like Dhivael, with an education in her head.

So what had she learned? _Think, damn you! Even Hellguard taught you better than this!_

Find a bolt hole, some place to curl up, escape, survive… until the day came when she had an opportunity for more. Like when the _Symmetry_ rescued her – and gave her food, water, shelter – and the people with faces like the Romulans had quiet voices instead of shouts, gentle hands instead of fists, lifted her up instead of putting a boot to her throat. Even if some of them had done it with hurt or reluctance or disapproval, who cared? Not her, especially not then. They _had_ done it, they had given her a _life_, which was a thousand times more than the Roms had done.

Maybe even Vi'hai would live to see a day like that again, if she got help.

She drew in the life breath of the _Independent_, a blend of lubricants, metal and wiring, all mixed with the dust and recycled air of a hundred worlds. Her right hand dragged to the right comm controls and worked them blind. When she picked to signal the Vulcan ship instead of a broadband _Mayday_, the pain eased a little bit.

Her next conscious sight was the _Exploration_'s healer leaning over her. _Or captain_, she didn' t know the insignias. But the pain was mercifully gone and her sleepiness the normal aftermath of recovering from such stress on the body. She stayed awake long enough to ask about her ship and passengers, and hearing they were fine, she drifted back to sending a thought out to the Empire. She had her thirteen months back. She'd find her Romulan parent before that final day when it would be just her and her ship headed for the grave.

She slept with a smile.

Spock's vehicle computer rang with an alarm from ShiKahr's central advisory. A thunderstorm predicted to stay in the outskirts of the Llangon mountains had switched course. Its strong pressure front whipped the wind into an increasing fury and picked up strength from the cool air of the desert's growing night. It crossed the still heated ground and gave birth to a sandstorm.

The newborn tempest marched with a massive front edge that drove across the distance like the front line of an enemy armada. It cut off his path from the Science Academy to his family's estate. If he dared risk going home, the storm would smash his light vehicle into the ground, if it didn't tear him apart in the air.

Kirk answered his call. "Spock! Are you picking up the storm?"

"The onboard sensors have warned me, Captain. The storm's severity is an insufficient level to damage even the smaller dwellings. However, I estimate it is grounding all traffic."

"We're getting the same readings. Don't try coming here, you won't make it ahead of that front. Is Bones with you?"

"Negative, Captain. He remained at the hospital to investigate the condition the _Exploration_ found in Jdehn and her crew."

A muscle in Kirk's jaw twitched. Unlike Spock, he had left the Academy after the results from the truth verifier came in; McCoy's battles sounded as bad as theirs. "Did they find out what caused the new stage of the disease?"

"Not as of yet, Captain, although they do not believe it is a true, new stage. More than likely, it is a related condition, brought on by a weakened state."

His captain did not relax that tight jaw. "At least they're over it and home. We have to find you – Wait a minute, Spock."

He stepped aside so Sarek could move in along side of him. "Spock, are these your correct coordinates?"

He double checked them against the onboard computer. "Yes, Father. I am searching for nearby shelters."

"We have one for you. You are in close proximity to Saavik's house and you should have sufficient time to reach it before the storm strikes. We will contact Saavik to inform her of your arrival."

_Saavik's house?_ Saavik _has her own home?_ It rivaled the moment he had heard her being introduced as Saavik _of Vulcan_ – and discovering the trunk from the _Aerfen_.

He confirmed the destination and set the vehicle on the new course. Shifting dust in the wind dimmed the remaining twilight, and dropped visibility from poor to practically impossible.

_A disturbing sign_. The storm moved in faster than he or his father had predicted. He had nearly reached the coordinates, but could only make out a black outline where the house should be. He needed more than that to set down safely. If he touched down on uneven ground in this weather, the vehicle would be tossed and him with it.

On cue, lights blazed out of the dark, irregular shape ahead of him, piercing the violence and transformed the structure into a modest home and a place for his vehicle. A communications signal from the house's systems guided him on where to set down, and he could finally see something in the tumultuous flow of gray shadows and dark red cyclones of sand.

A tall, slim form came out in a Vulcan robe, hood up, and stood by the landing bay within its protective walls. His stern touch battled for control against the greedy wind over the vehicle. The storm's hold dimmed as it battered against the bay walls, but he didn't have a victory until the pads wobbled and then thumped into a secure landing.

Saavik slapped the bay's controls to close it off and came to his side with another robe. "Are you well?"

He nodded as he pulled the protective clothing on, drawing the hood over his head, for the few exposed moments before the bay sealed itself.

"The storm's severity does not endanger the house or the vehicle bay. However, we should stay inside until it passes." She didn't wait any longer, but led him inside to safety. Once in a small foyer, they slipped out of the protective garments, the dust falling from them in a combination of running off like rain and puffing out in clouds like steam.

Saavik took the robe from him. "Be welcome to my home."

His answer was just as formal, but his eyebrows screwed together over her acting this way. Was it because they were alone and with no buffer? The last time they had talked was at the hospital when he had questioned what she had said to Mekhai about staying behind. "The blessings of logic on your house."

She dipped her head in a small bow and gestured for him to enter. He moved forward the few steps into the house. Traditional and modern Vulcan blended together to welcome him from the very first view. In the center was the customary firepit with the square of table and seats around it for the house's family and guests. But instead of being in a courtyard, it served as a pivot point with the house's main rooms right off of it. His eyes swept around the living area taking up the majority of the space on the left before they came back to Saavik.

"It is most unique and interesting, Saavik." He couldn't have given her any better compliment.

Her eyes shone with a deep luster. "I knew you would be one of the few to fully appreciate its significance."

Not just in its architecture, but to her. It told him why she had been formal earlier. When she welcomed him, she did it in full to underscore the importance of her having this place.

She gazed over the areas around where they stood. It was mostly bare. Only a peep of furniture and belongings existed in a room two steps down from the living area. "It is not ready to welcome guests, as you can see. Sacrificing the need for furnishings was necessary for more important priorities. However, the circumstances of the storm has caused me to receive you despite this break with hospitality. I did not believe you would mind."

_Far from it._ "On the contrary, I am pleased for the opportunity. I would have welcomed it without the storm having happened. I do not recognize a number of these designs and systems. May I?"

She motioned for him to proceed her, but only moved closer to the fire area. "May I offer you refreshment?"

It was also traditional. A guest was given the fire's warmth, water and even food. But Spock wanted something else.

"If you would not mind, I'd prefer to hear about your home first."

The light in her eyes grew into a glow around her. She put their robes away and came back to lead him in exploring the living area first. The way she did it, with her elegant head high, told him this was more than just about owning a house.

"I was most fortunate. You have most likely heard of the master architect, Li'Sek. He challenged his protegeés for new concepts and they sought someone willing to allow them to use their proposals in their home. This structure was scheduled for demolition. Instead, I was able to assume ownership and volunteer for the architectural project. If not for that opportunity and your parents discovering it for me, I would not have the house."

The house was full of surprises. First that Saavik owned it, even that a restless, star wanderer like her _wanted_ it, and now he learned Sarek and Amanda had made it happen.

The floor was made of a dark stone and a cushion of warm air floated up from it, heating the room through its natural property of rising to the ceiling. Two story windows, currently shuttered, made up almost the entire front wall of the livingroom. Above them, the smaller, traditional windows would bring in cool breezes from the desert, except they funneled into a duct system made to look like a sculpted design in the ceiling.

She noticed where his eyes stayed. "One of their revolutionary ideas is the natural capture of outside air elements for the heating and cooling system. Perhaps you would like to see more of it?"

She didn't really have to ask and it was obvious she knew it by her gesture to cross the room. It _was_ unfurnished, but a small dais was built into the light colored, side wall to showcase the Twilight Eagle statue. A simple staircase led up to an open loft, while two steps down took him into Saavik's work area. Here, obviously, was the sacrificed cost for furnishings for the living area. A computer system to do a starship proud wrapped around the small room. The windows behind it were equally shuttered and as tall as their counterparts on the opposite side. An empty dining area and then a kitchen, filled with both modern conveniences and Vulcan traditional, came off this study.

She punched up a set of schematics on the computer. Spock listened in admiration of the tank systems in the roof capturing the heat of the day, rotating it to the tanks in the foundation for warming the night, while the roof system pulled in the naturally cool, evening air to expel it during the day.

He asked again, "May I see more of this? The engineers are to be commended. Even without the storm, I would have supposed drafts from the desert would seep in with the large size and number of windows, and yet they do not."

She vacated her chair so he could sit and study the diagrams in greater detail.

"Spock, your investigation was to apply the truth verifier on the three suspects today, was it not? Are the results available?"

"They are unclassified, especially to you and the others affected by the attacks." Spock looked away from the flowing diagram of the house's tank system. He didn't get a facial tic as Kirk had over what he was about to say, but that didn't mean he was pleased. "All three, Sorel, S'ad, and Salok agreed readily to the test and each stated they were not involved in the disease or any attacks on Hellguard's survivors. Each of them had passed." He paused. "The verifier states they told the truth."

She made no disappointed reaction, of course. She was too disciplined for that. "Nurse Dasan's eyewitness account was fallible by his own admission, whereas the truth verifier is not. We also know it must be a member of the medical team due to the security on the stasis chambers. Could the legal authority to use the verifier be extended to the other team members?"

"The legal extension is unnecessary. Every member of the medical team had demanded a chance to verify their innocence and each has passed."

She still maintained her discipline and only grew quiet for a moment, even though that news meant they were back to the beginning instead of having the killer in hand and moving towards the cure.

No wonder Kirk's jaw got so tight, the muscles jumped.

Ultimately, she responded, "Indeed. It delivers a quandary."

Spock's head bobbed. "Yes, of who to believe? The truth verifier which cannot be overridden or the security on the stasis chambers which contradicts it?"

They stood quiet under the weight of a battle being lost.

"I have been reticent in not finishing the tour," Saavik spoke into the silence. She led him down the hall where the private quarters would be, except the house also broke with tradition here. Her room wasn't here, but the guest room was and conveniently stocked with its own climate controls. Set currently, Spock could tell, for Rrelthiz.

"Commander Uhura left safely?" Saavik asked.

Another blow they had handed to them today. In the middle of losing what little ground they had gained, they lost a vital team member.

"She did. She still retains the expectation to return."

"She said as much to me as well. Specifically, she told me she would return before the end of the next thirteen months."

When Saavik's time ran out.

They crossed around the square perimeter which led them back to the living area where Spock thought the tour would stop.

"Were you able to specify personal elements for your home, Saavik, or was your volunteering for the project an agreement to allow only their designs to be used?"

Her previous animation came back and flowed into him. "I was allowed a number of specifications to be used. As an example, I requested the front and rear views, although the engineers accomplished how to do so on a larger scale. The separate climate controls for the guest room was also by my request." She led him up the stairs to the loft that lay atop the work study and dining area. "The majority of my requests had to do with here."

It was her room that he thought hidden somewhere downstairs. He barely made note of the sleeping platform, dresser, and other simple and elegant furnishings, all in black, rich browns and contrasting creams. Something made him look up immediately, perhaps Saavik standing in the room, watching him expectantly. A large skylight opened the night above to the entire loft. The ending sandstorm had scrubbed the evening to a clear brilliance, and his eyes came down to watch Saavik watch the stars.

_Even grounded on Vulcan, she sleeps amidst them._

As well as in between the sights hidden by the shutters. Her eyes met his, and he saw a delicate light brighten them. She knew she spoiled herself.

The next sight wasn't so pleasant and in fact, it was deeply painful. On her dresser was the box holding his faked letter to her.

_How could she keep it?_ She had said she would at the hospital, but so much had happened since then.

But she indicated for him to follow and never knew he even noticed the box.

She showed him a meditation platform that jutted off her loft: suspended in mid-air, small flame jets set all around the perimeter, no railings or walls to stop her from being open to the desert on her left, the ShiKahr skyline on her right, and the sky above her. Spock now knew the views those windows would give him when they became unshuttered. They, this platform, and the entire house, was truly built for her.

She led him back inside and he took the refreshments honoring him as a guest, but brought them to her study. They had work to do.

Who to believe? The hand that said someone on the medical team had to be behind all this or the hand that said they told the truth that they were innocent.

He gave her systems access to the Academy and the hospital without hesitation. While he did that, Saavik opened the shutters on both sides of the house.

The glory of the desert and the glow of Vulcan's society: Spock moved his chair, which she had kindly given to him as guest and senior officer, so he could see both peripherally while at the computer station. She excused herself to get more water for herself, after asking if he would like more as well.

Not surprising, they had both pondered where had the investigation gone wrong? How could the doctors and nurses be innocent?

"What if they were used without their knowledge?" That was Saavik's first attack.

"Specify," he requested.

"My theory stems from my personal experience on the _Aerfen_ and the guard's experience with the stasis security. Neither of us has knowledge of those events. A viable solution is the offender was trusted with our security access and made use of it in this fashion without our knowing it was done."

"The theory has a flaw in your case."

She agreed. "My lack of memory in meeting the person who came onboard. However, for our argument regarding the stasis chambers, that element does not affect the equation."

Spock's eyebrow rose. "Hypothetically, this person would have access to at least one member of the medical team."

"He may have also be the one who came to me on the _Aerfen_ and meet the general physical description in Nurse Dasan's memory."

And be someone who would have satisfied Saavik in speaking to her and need to remove his records from the ship's data. That was a short list.

They had their own ideas for who that could be and set off on separate research. At one point, Spock watched her. She sat on a cushion, her knees drawn up to her chest, and the tricorder dangling from its black strap between them from her hands.

One of the things he had missed most about Saavik was the power of her intellect, that absolute thirst for knowledge. It was one of the most attractive parts of her personality, and something unique. He knew many strong people --strength and bravery, the courage to go into the unknown or danger, were qualities everyone close to him shared. She had them, plus the way her intelligence worked in tandem with him now, sometimes forging ahead and looking back to share what she found.

He suddenly remembered that night when they had run in Death Valley, stopping to watch the sunset. Now again her eyes were alight as she drank in a desert's beauty. This woman both familiar and now so fascinatingly unfamiliar.

She sensed his eyes on her as she had then. She raised an eyebrow in question.

"I merely wondered what you were thinking."

"Dr. McCoy informed me of Sorel's statement regarding his not knowing his own actions if a someone like myself was a child of someone he lost to Hellguard. I correlated it with the working theory of another Vulcan aiding whoever is responsible for the disease. I see you investigate the _Symmetry _team. It appears illogical." She waited for him to make an argument, but he made none. He was listening. "As you will recall, Dr. McCoy's point was: if the killers believe that everything having to do with the hybrids like myself must be removed, surely they would strike the _Symmetry_ team as well. The response is obvious."

"It is," he agreed quite calmly. "The attacker _is_ a member of the _Symmetry_ team or has a member of the team aiding them. They would not make a move against themselves."

"However, can we logically believe it of one of those people? Even S'tven, even of him I cannot believe it. Spock, if you were to use the word hate, as Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy do, someone who hates the hybrids-- We have already ruled out many who do. The Romulans, those groups we are able to track down." Saavik's voice trailed off.

He waited. When she said no more, he prompted her. "And?"

She took the last sip from her glass. "...Sorel spoke of _pain_, not hate. S'tven and those like him suffer. It is not the same thing."

The comm station signaled for attention. He answered it. It was McCoy.

"Spock, everything all right there?"

"Of course, Doctor. I thought you received my message saying I arrived safely."

"Spock--"

Saavik took this opportunity to go into the kitchen.

"--Rrelthiz' planet is calling her back. They're having a crisis there and she's needed."

"That is... regrettable news." He thought of the guest room with its perfectly set environment for the Carreon that would never get used now.

"Spock... something else. In the time you've been there, have you noticed Saavik eating or drinking more than usual?"

Spock thought about his answer, how he had seen her constantly with a water glass by her side, how she was in the kitchen now. "I do not know if it is more than usual. I have seen her doing both."

"Spock...it's only that... I just came back from examining Arik and the two others. I saw some symptoms and ran some tests... I did the same thing with Saavik earlier today, just in case."

"Doctor, your hesitation does not improve the situation."

McCoy let out a long sigh. "Spock, Saavik's in Phase III."


	29. Chapter 29

**Phase III**

_And somewhere far from safety, there's a man who's walking free.  
His story isn't mine but he's as much alone as me.  
I am cursed to walk among the wounded and the slain.  
And when the storm comes crashing on the plain,  
I will dance before the lightning to music sacred and profane._

_Shoulder to the wind, I'll turn my face into the spray.  
And when the heavens open, let the drops fall where they may.  
If they finally wash away the stain,  
from a daughter of the race of Cain..._

* * *

"Friend Saavik..." Rrelthiz couldn't say anything else. 

Spock stood a few steps away, giving them some privacy. He had planned not to be here at all, but to say his good-bye to the Carreon and leave her alone with Saavik. But Rrelthiz kept stopping him with one more thing she didn't want him to forget or one more word of advice for McCoy so he didn't give up or another detail Kirk needed to remember. It kept the three of them here when they thought they shouldn't be intruding; the doctor and his captain, at least, had managed to slip a little further away.

The shuttle waited in the background for Rrelthiz to get on board so they could take her to the ship in orbit, but she only stood there, tail thrashing and her finger talons clicking together, robbed of words.

Saavik finally broke the silence in a hushed voice. "Say goodbye to me, Rrelthiz."

A long trembling note shook the Carreon's throat sac. "The crisis on my homeworld may indeed not be resolved quickly. I may not be back in time--"

--before Saavik died.

"I understand, Rrelthiz. It is not what we would have wished, but it is the reality with which we must contend."

"I _tried_! I told them what was happening here – I _told_ them, and still they insist!"

"It tells us how much you are needed there. Rrelthiz, it is what it is. Do not disturb yourself with it any further. We do not know this is our last moment to see each other, but if it is, then let us have it as an appreciation for having met."

"_Friend Saavik..._"

Rrelthiz's cape rustled around her in a sudden, warm morning breeze and her tail drooped, dusting the ground. Saavik reached out and took the thin arms in her hands.

"I would give you a gift." She leaned over and whispered so low that Spock could not hear what she said.

_As it should be_.

Kirk jerked his chin and they took the opportunity to move away even farther, but not enough to block what Saavik said next as she straightened up.

"It is my _áhtia_ name."

Spock nearly stopped in his steps, but made himself keep moving. McCoy asked the question with his expression.

Spock translated in a whisper. Kirk knew his, so did McCoy, but he had never used the Vulcan term for it. "It is what non-Vulcans refer to as our first name. It is the private name for our _self_."

Saavik did not have one before when he knew her. She had to have chosen it in the past couple of years. Yet another sign of how much she had grown and changed. He could not help but think of a time when she would have told him what it was.

He, at least, had the gift of this little remaining time to be with her. The Carreon did not.

A touch of Rrelthiz's old humor, of her trying to deal with leaving, rose up. "Friend Saavik, am I supposed to pronounce that?"

"No." Saavik's back was to them, so he could not see what was in her eyes, but her voice carried everything. "Merely remember it."

Still Rrelthiz hesitated. Saavik put a hand to the other's shoulder. "Say goodbye to me, Rrelthiz."

The sound that broke from the Carreon could only be called a sob. She grabbed Saavik fiercely. Her lidless eyes could not blink or close; she could only stare around her at the people who went about their lives, not knowing how hers shattered.

A crewman came down from the shuttle and shouted at Rrelthiz to get her attention. Kirk hurried over, waving him away.

Saavik at last stepped back and gently covered Rrelthiz's head with her hood. The Carreon walked away backward, not even picking up her feet all the way so her talons dragged trails in the ground. When she reached the shuttle, she wrenched herself around and ran up the ramp.

Saavik stood alone and watched it go.

"You should tell her about that letter."

Spock expected McCoy to say that as much as he expected Saavik to have a house and choose an _áhtia_ name, but the doctor had said it as he watched her watch Rrelthiz fly away.

"Do you know the letter's contents?" Spock asked. He didn't ask which letter, the doctor obviously meant the one Valeris had forged in Saavik's name, but he couldn't see how McCoy could have learned what was said within it.

"No, but I have a pretty good idea, based on what I know about you and... things I learned while carrying your katra."

"No doubt you do, Doctor, however I will not ask you to explain your theory. It is immaterial."

"Is it, Spock? Wait, listen to me for a second. Whatever was in it was something very personal and sensitive to you or you wouldn't have reacted the way you did."

Spock bristled by folding his hands behind his back and turning his shoulder slightly away from McCoy. "You would not react to someone severing an important association?"

"Of course I would, but that wasn't the only reason why you acted like you did. It wasn't only because Saavik supposedly ended your friendship, it was the reason why she did it. Anyone would do the same thing. If someone rejected _me_ after they found out they caused my male psyche to shoot way off the Richter scale..."

"Do not mock what happened."

"I'm not. Honestly, I'm not, and I'm sorry that I made it sound that way."

"You do not know if that is the reason and you should not speculate on an issue when you have admitted to its sensitivity."

"You're right, I'm sorry."

Kirk crossed to Saavik and Spock moved to join them when she said something that stopped Kirk in mid-step. The captain stared at her, mulling it over, and then leaned in closer. They obviously needed privacy.

McCoy cut off Spock's retreat anyway and even jabbed at his chest. "Spock, _listen_ to me! How much time does Saavik have left? Don't let it slip away so that you regret – don't be so pointy eared over the damned word! I'm not yelling at you, I'm pleading with you. – Don't regret that you had a chance and you didn't take it! Whatever that letter said _was_ sensitive which means it's important."

It didn't occur to either of them that McCoy didn't mention finding a cure for the very first time.

Amanda picked that minute to come up. She stepped in between them on her way. "Everyone is still here? I should have expected it, I suppose. It's been a terrible few days. Uhura left yesterday, Rrelthiz had to leave this morning, and Saavik..."

_Saavik is in Phase III_. McCoy's stare crossed over Amanda's head unnoticed and jabbed into Spock.

His mother gathered herself from the unspoken statement. "I needed to speak with her on a matter, but it looks as if Jim has – ah, whatever it is seems to be finishing. Excuse me."

He watched his small mother glide over, but Saavik and Kirk didn't see her coming.

"Doctor," he said at last, "you have made my point for me. Saavik's remaining time is unknown and the issue is delicate. If she rejects our renewed association as she supposedly did in the letter, I will lose whatever days remain with no time for another opportunity to resolve the problem with her. As it is now, I have renewed our association. Therefore, we have everything to lose and nothing to gain."

McCoy might have seen his point, doubtful but a possibility. More than likely, he was about to say what a bad idea it was, but Spock was not wrong and the doctor or even Kirk (_has he discussed this with Jim?_) could not change his mind.

But Amanda's cry erased whatever McCoy's response would have been.

"_How could you!_"

Saavik and Kirk whirled together, noticing Amanda for the first time. The captain's head jerked from one woman to the other and Saavik – Saavik looked like she had lost everything.

"Amanda--"

"No! No more! Not this time."

His mother turned and hurried away. Her face and lips paled by the blood drained out of them over what she had heard, she stiff armed her son from stopping her.

Saavik came after her in fast, ground eating strides. "Amanda--"

His mother weighed a third of Saavik's strength, but she threw off the younger woman and the fierce words stabbed her to the ground. "I said no. Stay away from me, Saavik. _Stay away_."

She folded herself into a groundcar and Saavik stood alone in the devastation of her wake.


	30. Chapter 30

Amanda sat down in the blessed silence of the main living area. The sun laid on the other side of the house, leaving the room in shaded, cooler light.

A shadow appeared in the open archway. She didn't even need to look.

"Will you _please_ stop skulking around my house! You could at least make _some_ noise instead of sneaking up on me! Stop walking around like a ghost--" That word reminded her that Saavik could die very soon, and she choked on a sob.

Saavik stayed silent, then spun away, leaving. Amanda almost called to her, but she was gone.

_It's better this way. Really, it _is.

She suddenly heard a noise by the courtyard entrance, and then another. She made a noise between another sob and a laugh.

_The first noise was the large vase on the floor by the door. The second was the rattling of the House seal against the wall. _A third noise and then a fourth until finally Saavik appeared again in the archway.

"Was that more satisfactory?" she asked.

_No, don't! Don't make me forget what you did._

Amanda inhaled a calming breath, but her eyes shone with held back tears. Angry tears. "Yes."

"I thought you would go to the garden."

The garden, like any garden on Vulcan, was meant to soothe, create peace and harmony for the mind and spirit. Amanda couldn't take her turmoil there; she didn't want to be calmed down. She wanted... She wanted...

"I told you to stay away from me."

Her harsh words earned a faint, "I know."

The shaded light must have caused the hollows in Saavik's cheeks and the shadows under her eyes. Phase III was too new to show such harsh signs. Some of Amanda's rage blurred. "You knew I told you to stay away, but you didn't listen."

"...I... No."

"Saavik--"

She flung out her hand as she yelled, but Saavik misunderstood and thought she was being called closer. She knelt before Amanda like a supplicant before the High Priestess T'Lar, and Amanda felt rather than saw the bare quiver in the formal pose, like a fawn before the hunter, waiting to be rescued or slaughtered.

"Tell me I misheard what Jim said to you."

Saavik's head barely shook in a no. "You did not."

The soft answer hurt, because it destroyed Amanda's last hope that she was wrong. "You were going to _murder_ Valeris."

"No."

"You just told me it was true!"

"I did not go to Valeris with the intention of killing her. I do acknowledge that I thought it might be a possibility. Rrelthiz came with me for that reason. So I may have her judgement, clear of any bias and the disease."

"Rrelthiz is completely biased in your favor!"

"No, Amanda. Rrelthiz will never commit an act of dishonor, not even for my sake. And I would not want her to do so."

"And that's how you justify murder? Because the Carreons say it's all right?"

"It appears harsh to you, but their culture--"

"Don't twist things around! I know not to judge another culture by my standards, but you're not Carreon! You say you're Vulcan, but you do this!"

"I did not attempt to murder Valeris. I did not even utter the threat."

"But could you have _done _it?"

Saavik took a long second before she answered. "Possibly."

Amanda didn't know she cringed further into the settee until she saw the shutter come down over Saavik's face. "Just like that, you could _kill_ someone."

"No. Not 'just like that'."

"But you could? Judge if someone should live or die, and then kill them?"

"If... I thought it necessary, yes. Amanda, a Vulcan will kill if there is a reason."

"Stop justifying it! You can't! You can't say killing is necessary."

And then like she had done so many days ago when Amanda had sat in her hospital room and told her she couldn't guarantee she'd make Spock safe from Valeris' charges, Saavik said, "Yes, I can. But it was not necessary in this case. That is why I did not do it."

"But you _thought _about it. And you've done it in the past?"

Some of the straight line in those shoulders fell. "You know my past."

Even Amanda paused at that reminder. "Not then. _Since_ then."

"Amanda, I did not kill Valeris."

"And I said she didn't have your heart. I was wrong." She wished she could cry. Or scream again. Something, some release. She stared at Saavik, at this sudden stranger. "I don't know you."

The quiver became mutely visible, no longer just felt in the air. "Amanda. I did not go to Valeris that night to kill her. I thought of the possibility, I have acknowledged it. I asked for Rrelthiz so I would not allow what I learned of Valeris' betrayal, or the influence of Phase II, to cause my surrender to that possibility. I suspected Valeris abused a meld in some fashion to gain the information she needed for her deceptions, and I could use that admission to save Spock."

"Do not bring my son into this."

Saavik took a deep breath and nodded. "Those were my only actions that night. That was _all_."

The look was so much different than Spock's when he had stood, waiting to see her reaction to his forcing a meld on Valeris. And if she had told Spock to stay away from her, he'd have stayed away. But then, Spock was her child and Saavik was not. And that's what it came down to, what Saavik was already thinking. Their friendship lasted only as they wanted to keep it, and judging by the kneeling figure in front of her, Saavik thought Amanda was ending it now.

Was she? She didn't know what she wanted, except not to know this thing she now knew.

Not understanding why she did it, she reached out to cup that dark head in front of her. Some human need to touch, to be reassured. In the shock of her life since Sarek first told her he wanted her, she watched as Saavik actually leaned forward and laid her head and shoulders on Amanda's lap. _Saavik_ let herself be held.

_Did she sense my need?_ They were close enough for Saavik's telepathy to pick up the thought.

Amanda touched the bowed head with hesitant fingers, then a long, pent up breath rushed out, finally escaping. She wrapped her arms around the Vulcan in her lap. A faint tremor ran through the young woman's body. She didn't cry or show any sign of emotion, just the tremor and a tenseness like a wild thing poised at an upcoming storm.

"I am sorry," came the whispered words.

"I know," Amanda answered. She did know, but she too was ready to shake.

Amazing how that normally strong voice could sound small. "Is there anything I can do?"

Amanda wanted to smile, but she wasn't ready. Too drained, and Saavik wouldn't see it anyway. "Move back here. I'm scared with you out there alone in your house."

"I do not understand."

"I was going to ask you when I overheard..."

The tremor became tension. Saavik poised for rejection again.

"I'm afraid for you, Saavik." She was. It came back to her in a rush, just how very afraid she was. "I know how important your home is to you, what it means. But I'm afraid. Whoever's behind this keeps finding new ways to hurt you. I don't want you alone so that he can convince you to go out into the desert or figure out some new sickness like he did with Jdehn and Mekhai."

"Returning here does not necessarily prevent such attacks from occurring. My going into Phase III thirteen months early is evidence of it."

Amanda bit her lip at that. "You asked me if there was anything you could do."

A warm breath in a sigh, acknowledging defeat. "You are manipulating me."

"Yes, I am. Will you do it?"

"Yes." No hesitation there, but now a beat of silence punctuated the plea in, "Amanda..."

She touched the dark head. "I wouldn't ask you to move in if we weren't all right."

She still felt sick inside when she thought of-- But she had answered her previous question. She wasn't letting Saavik go.

The faint tremor in the long body eased; so did the tight lines. In a few moments, another miracle: Saavik fell asleep in her lap. Not believing it even as she saw it was true, Amanda braced herself to make no movement, and Sarek found them this way.

His eyebrows went up, but he said nothing about the unexpected sight. "My wife, Dr. McCoy thought you may be in some need. Are you well?"

She almost said nothing about it to him. Saavik and Sarek kept a distance between them that they at last seemed to be closing. She didn't want to ruin that, but she felt the whole thing bubbling up even as she clutched Saavik. In a hoarse whisper, she told him what had happened, what she overheard Kirk say. Sarek only nodded.

"You knew what she did!" Amanda accused.

"Yes, I did."

"How!" Saavik twitched under her hands, so Amanda lowered her voice before she hissed the question again.

"In preparation for Valeris' tribunal, I reviewed all the essential information, including the security tapes of her discussion with Saavik."

"How can you be so calm about it? You can't approve of it!"

"Amanda, I can neither approve nor disapprove of an action that did not occur."

"But she thought she might do it. That's the reason she took Rrelthiz with her."

"In watching the security footage, yes, I saw the undercurrent of it. And I watched Saavik and Rrelthiz reject it. Nor have I ever heard Saavik saying such an action would be correct, only that she saw a possibility of doing it and would have taken the repercussions if she had."

"Something so _wrong_."

"Yes. Did she tell you killing Valeris was not wrong?"

No, she hadn't. Amanda made her fingers stop playing nervously with Saavik's hair, but they only fretted against her palm. "You weren't so casual when you found out Spock... forced a meld."

Some of that terrible hurt from when they learned it was true, stiffened Sarek. "Spock is guilty of a crime, Saavik is not. If the situation were different, so would be my reaction." He forced calm over himself with an effort that, most likely, only Amanda would have noticed. "While you defended Spock and condemn Saavik."

"I didn't _defend_ what he did! I just--" She stopped in real pain.

The deep brown of Sarek's robes matched his eyes, so warm and so steady. "My wife, you are not capable of a negative judgement against Saavik for a thought she did not act upon. What truly disturbs you?"

"That she -- that she thought of it at all. That she could even consider..."

"That she is capable of violence?"

"That makes no sense, does it?" Saavik was in Starfleet. Starfleet had to defend the Federation, violently at times. For Saavik's duties in the border patrol, that violence was almost commonplace. And she had been right when she said even a Vulcan would kill if needed. But it wasn't even that.

"On the contrary, my wife, I find it very understandable. I have known for many years that you have romanticized Saavik's past."

"Romanticized?" She didn't even notice that he hadn't given the exact number of years to the day.

"I have read it in Terran literature. The feral child brought to civilization. The orphan abandoned to a difficult survival rising to a prominent status. The primitive traits harnessed for domesticated means. You spoke highly of Saavik's defending you against Mekhai."

At the restaurant. She had _delighted_ in the way Saavik stood up to Mekhai, and truth to tell, she still did. Protecting her that night had been necessary. What she had heard about that confrontation with Valeris...

"I suggest, my wife, that you are facing the reality rather than the abstract."

"Sarek... what do you really think?"

His voice, already kept low, nevertheless still softened. "My opinion is of no help to you, Amanda. It is strictly Vulcan."

"Don't say that. I know you wouldn't have done the same thing in her place."

"You think not? Do not look so surprised, my wife. You forget your first calling the Kahs-wan brutal and cruel, let alone Koon-ut Kali-fee. And yet, I have not seen you against the traditions since you learned why they exist."

"But this--"

"Amanda, if I was in plak tow? With someone I trusted vaunting their betrayals of me, of how he deliberately took all that was of importance in my life because he believed he deserved those things and I did not--"

"Valeris said _that?_"

"Yes. Amongst many other things. In an interesting footnote for this situation, she noted she was able to end all Saavik's relationships except the one with you. You alone, amongst those tied strongly to Spock, did not leave Saavik for Valeris. Nor did you abandon Spock."

Saavik's back rose slowly and fell in sleep under Amanda's hand. Her warmth covered Amanda like a soft blanket, and Amanda had almost abandoned Saavik over Valeris a few minutes ago. "If we had been with Spock when he received his letter instead of Saavik..."

"You would have questioned her as you did Spock."

"But he didn't tell us he thought Saavik sent him one. If he had -- oh Sarek, if he had, we would have seen Valeris' deception way back then."

He nodded. "A flaw in Valeris' plan. She did not know we were aboard the _Aerfen_ when Saavik received her letter. Valeris must have waited for it to work against her. Perhaps, like Spock, she believed you ended your association with Saavik when it made our son uncomfortable."

"Regardless, my wife, I have given you my point of view. As for a human's, Captain Kirk thought much the same as you do. Dr. McCoy took a different viewpoint. After Captain Kirk's explanation of what you overheard--"

"You _knew_ that I overheard it when you came here!"

"The doctor stated he approved of someone -- to use his words -- 'putting a scare into Valeris' after the damage she has done. I see this viewpoint better agrees with you."

Amanda was smiling. "It does. Don't try to make sense out of it." She glanced down at Saavik, then back up to her husband. "Sarek... you knew Saavik could be that violent, that's why you're not as surprised."

"I have seen her capacity for it, yes."

"Because you were on the _Symmetry_ team, you went to Hellguard."

"Correct."

"Maybe I should watch that security tape. It seemed to work for you."

Sarek's eyebrows drew together. "Amanda. I would prefer you do not view it. It contains information Saavik has kept private, and should remain private until she chooses to reveal it. I should have surmised this information would be there and not viewed it myself."

She glanced up at her husband from the top of her eyes. "You know, this makes me want to see it even more. What could be so secretive that Valeris would tell -- the letter! You know what's in the letter Valeris forged to Spock!"

"Correction. I know the contents of the letter Valeris forged to Saavik."

"And I can't know?"

"Only if Saavik chooses to tell you. Amanda, it is _private_."

Something told her that should be a clue to the letter's contents, but she couldn't figure it out. Not now. Perhaps later, when she would go to the garden and settle her mind.

Amanda looked down again at the sleeping woman in her lap. "She may never tell me. Saavik is like that--a black hole of secrets." She gave silent thanks that their whispers had not ended that much needed sleep. "And this secret made you change your opinion of her? That's how you can accept the -- the violence?"

"My wife..." He stopped a moment in thought, folding his hands in the same gesture Spock had inherited. "All beings have the capacity for violence. I saw Saavik's, due to her childhood, as we returned on the _Symmetry_, and I hesitated to put that violence near our son."

"You were afraid for Spock."

"Amanda, it may be best if you refrain from commenting until I finish. Because of my _hesitation_, affected by the events on Hellguard, I did not believe Saavik could overcome the dominant place violence held in her life. When Saavik came with Spock from Genesis for his fal tor pan, I saw I had been wrong in my assessment of her capabilities."

"Then why did you have a problem with my suggesting she stay with us after that?" She ignored Sarek' s look at her interrupting again. "Oh. I see. You were afraid for _me_."

"I grant I did not want you harmed. Saavik is not like the others you aid. I saw her accomplishments, I saw the strength, determination, and intelligence it took to gain them. But there, my logic faltered. I still questioned her overcoming her past and not harming you."

His admitting to it touched Amanda's heart. She held out a hand and he took it, swallowing it in the warmth of his larger one, then brushing his fingertips across her palm and over her own fingers.

"You protected us," she whispered.

He nodded. "I have since learned my concern is unfounded. My protection was not needed. More so, I owed her my respect. I see why both you and Spock never doubted she would accomplish what she has. In fact, how she has accomplished more than even he expected. She has surprised him."

Amanda grinned to herself, recalling Spock's expression when Saavik glided into the ShiKahr ceremony, on seeing her belongings, on discovering her home. "Surprised him indeed."

"Are you less disturbed, my wife?"

She felt better, definitely better. She'd figure out why later. "Thank you, Sarek."

He only looked back, and she took a deep breath as she read his eyes. She loved him so much.

Sarek looked down at Saavik. "Interesting."

Saavik's face still held the same serenity all Vulcans had in sleep, but her body language had changed. She pressed against Amanda, curling around her legs and shifted as much of her upper body as could fit in the petite lap.

"Sarek, look. She's a cuddler."

Sarek closed his eyes in another attempt for patience, Amanda noted warmly. "She does not 'cuddle', Amanda. She reverts to her formative years need for warmth and security."

But it was getting hard to sit in the same position under Saavik's dense Vulcan weight. "Sarek, help me move her up, so she can stretch out next to me."

"Amanda, I must point out you have missed the obvious, logical solution." In a louder voice, he called "Saavik!"

She jolted awake, leaping to her feet, taking in everything and everyone around her. Her eyes widened when she realized she had fallen asleep, and with the subtle shifts in the body that Vulcans gave, Amanda saw she was ready to apologize for it.

"Amanda and I have kept the room you used previously when you lived here," Sarek said. "Go there and rest."

Saavik shifted, smoothing the lines out of the sleeveless shift and restoring her bearing. "I am gratified by your hospitality, Ambassador. However, I do not require further sleep and will rejoin the investigation efforts."

"Illogical. The fact you slept here displays your need for rest. You must keep your strength to better combat this disease."

Saavik, Amanda was happy to see, didn't bristle and prepare to argue with that tone as she would have in the past. Instead, after a brief, questioning glance at Amanda, she nodded acceptance for Sarek's care and slipped away.

Amanda glared at him for ruining things. "Why didn't you just do like I asked and move her up here?"

"Amanda, clearly you were uncomfortable under her weight. And despite our speaking softly, Saavik would normally never have slept through our conversation. Her body must require sleep and the proper place for it is in the room we have provided."

"I wouldn't have been uncomfortable if you had put her on the lounge! And I didn't care that I was uncomfortable! After all these years, haven't you learned what a moment is?"

"I have indeed." He paired his first two fingers and pressed them to her lips in a Vulcan's kiss.


	31. Chapter 31

"Oh my--" Corrigan's hands turned white at the knuckles from his tight grip on the report padd.

McCoy could see it was marked 'high priority' even from his seat on Daniel's couch. With Sorel and S'ad still under suspicion, at least of being used as accomplices, Corrigan still stayed one of the few people it was safe to be around. "What is it?"

The look in the other man's eyes could only be called stunned. "It's from R'vik. She's the healer who started helping with my caseload and Sorel's when we got busy with the disease team. It's one of my patients." Corrigan ran to his desk and punched a control. "Sorel! I need you in my office! In fact, I need everybody."

Every ounce of the medical man inside of McCoy came alert. "Is your patient all right?"

"She probably doesn't think so. A mixed couple, she's human and he's not, both spacers, and with the usual trouble having children. She finally was pregnant, and then I got this. Hysterical pregnancy."

McCoy took the padd. "Poor woman. It's a damned shame. I'm guessing they were out on a run and didn't get to a physician early on? I don't see how else she didn't--"

"That's not my point! _Len._ This woman showed every sign of being pregnant, but she's not."

"It still happens even in this day and age, Daniel. We just usually catch it right away."

"Dammit, think about what I'm saying! Sorel! There you are, good. Len, what kind of condition has symptoms, can even _kill_ people, but never shows up on any tests?"

McCoy echoed Daniel's _Oh my god_ to himself. "The disease!_Psychosomatic_. That's why we can't find anything, not a goddamn thing!"

"The greatest tool any of us has is our mind. And for a Vulcan? Somebody took that extra ability and twisted psychosomatic into-- into– _obscene._"

Srre had only caught the tail end of the bombshell and had to ask what he missed. Sorel spoke in Vulcan, the long stream of words more than a translation of what McCoy had said, probably saying his next words before he did.

"The hybrids never were injected or ingested or inhaled anything! Someone got into their _minds_ and put the whole damn disease into their subconscious! They're killing off _themselves_."

Silence laid heavy as the first stares went around the room. Then eyes looked away. Sorel spoke, gathering his authority around him and using it to draw up the others. "The implication is obvious. The majority of these patients had training in mental shielding. It would not be easy to break past such self-protection. It would need someone equally or better skilled in these techniques, and with medical training to install the mental conditions of the disease. In addition -- let me finish, Daniel. In addition, it is someone the patient would allow to meld with them, and I believe only a full meld could bury this suggestion into the subconscious so well."

Corrigan choked out, "You're saying it's a Vulcan healer."

"I am saying the odds favor the implication. I calculate them to be--"

"Don't. I can't stand it right now."

_Dammit, Jim was right._

S'ad spoke up. "Sorel is correct. We knew we were already under suspicion. The thought disturbs me as much as anyone. However, if one of us is responsible, that one must be found. Meanwhile, this suspicion has caused us to focus away from the most important detail."

Sorel already moved out of the room, activating a communicator in his hand. "We know how to treat our patients."

Relief flooded McCoy even as he hurried after the others as they hustled to the patient ward. Still, a nagging thought sat, worrying at his brain. Which one of the Vulcans did this?

_Not necessarily one of THESE Vulcans! _But he didn't know that for sure. He watched Sorel and S'ad running with him, slowing their pace to his. One of them, a killer?

A VSE guard at the Phase III almost blocked Sorel from going in, but Healer T'Juri had taken Sorel's call and came out to clear them. McCoy still had clearance and moved his way to the front.

The ward was scheduled to be closed down. Too many beds lay empty and the few living patients would be better off in private rooms. The Vulcans discussed how to preserve Micar's mural that now stood over the room like a tombstone.

Sorel finished explaining all the details and everyone barreled into the ward. T'Juri's head reared back from what she heard, in the closest sign she'd ever give to showing surprise.

_I know exactly how you feel._

But now they had a cure! _A cure!_

Sorel addressed the hybrids in the room. Vi'hai was back in a bed after his excursion with Jdehn, and Saavik blasted through the entrance at the other end. He hadn't had time to get a hold of Jim and Spock.

One of the worst off -- A'kornora -- couldn't even raise a hand anymore and her voice was no louder than the whisper of dust on the floor. "...I will...volunteer."

T'Juri stepped next to her bed and warned her in an equally soft voice of how far she would have to reach in with the meld. When A'kornora didn't change her mind, the healer had to make the connection for both of them, holding the weak woman's hand to her temple. Her patient only mouthed the words by making the slightest tremors in her lips. Everyone in the ward took one group breath and waited.

The healer raised her voice. "I have found it."

The breath blew out.

A'kornora stiffened and then convulsed, mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Sorel grabbed T'Juri, trying to separate them. The skin around his eyes and across his cheekbones stretched, lines gouging deep creases in his forehead and it was nothing next to the horror in the woman's face.

It was only a shade next to A'kornora's pain. She fought off the contact, but T'Juri was frozen in the meld. S'ad rushed forward, joining Sorel in pulling T'Juri out of the meld. McCoy saw the moment it broke because she sagged in between them. He shoved forward with the others to A'kornora who choked and gasped for air. Her mouth stayed open, now in a silent plea to breathe. Another of the new medical team rushed forward with a crash cart. He grabbed a tricorder and hurriedly scanned the struggling patient.

Corrigan shouted, "Blocked windpipe? Mental trauma?" He snatched a hypospray, and waiting impatiently for McCoy's diagnosis so he could load it.

"Doctors!"

The shout came from across the room. McCoy glanced up once, saw Komal choking like A'kornora. Corrigan was already running, Srre jumping the few steps to Komal, joined by the last present member of the new team with another crash cart. Arik suddenly appeared in the ward door and stared at Komal, face draining to a sickly white-green.

"Daniel! Nothing's showing up on the scans!"

Saavik moved even as McCoy yelled, but she boxed in Arik, not Corrigan, and herded him to the foot of Komal's bed. No one could hear what she said right into his ear, but it was clear that he didn't like whatever it was. He tried escaping her like a frightened rabbit, but couldn't get around her.

"_Do not repeat my mistake._"

Everyone heard her say that, but even with the force of her wake dragging him there, they barely got to the bedside in time. Komal reached out to him, her hand a mere breath off the bed. Arik pulled away and blindly shook his head, no matter how much Saavik leaned in.

"–should never have been born."

_What!_ McCoy couldn't believe he just heard T'Juri say it, but she looked up from where Sorel had left her, barely holding herself up on the crash cart, eyes wide on the laboring A'kornora.

Saavik reached to take Komal's hand just as another katra bearer rushed to A'kornora's side, but too late. It was over in seconds. Two more dead and their katras, lost.

* * *

"These people are supposed to safe! And then she says something like that! How do we know what she did in that meld?"

McCoy's voice rang over the empty ward beds like a cold breeze until it struck the far wall and echoed back. A'kornora's and Komal's bodies were gone, the living patients moved out, and he updated Kirk and Spock. The only infected people who were still here were Saavik, whose head bent over a tricorder, and Arik, who sat slumped on a bed. His eyes stared with a dead light at nothing, so lost that he probably didn't realize he sat on Komal's bed.

"T'Juri argues," Spock said, "that the statement did not originate with her, Doctor. Nor did she do anything in the meld to cause A'kornora's death."

Kirk's mouth was a tight, thin line. "She certainly didn't touch Komal."

"Sorel has also verified that he witnessed nothing untoward in the meld, Dr. McCoy."

"Aren't you one of the people saying Sorel's involved in killing these people? _What good is his word now?_"

"I am one of those people, Doctor, despite my personal connection with him, and I take the possibility of Sorel's guilt into consideration. However, we have no need for argument. Healer T'Juri has voluntarily removed herself from the medical team and offered herself for investigation."

"_Dammit_, Spock, why didn't you say so right away! I swear, sometimes I'd love to--" McCoy rubbed his hands over his face and then into his hair. "Never mind. That's not going to get us anywhere." Except to get rid of the worst bile choking his system. "All right, what do we do now?"

Spock nodded, obviously pleased that McCoy focused on what was important. He glanced over his shoulder. "Saavik?"

She looked up from a tricorder and came forward. Realizing she was leaving, Arik jumped to his feet. Bags hung under his eyes from his thoughts, not from a lack of sleep. "I should have... I could have... _something_. You were right."

"Yes, I was."

"It's why you told me not to repeat your mistake." He stood with his shoulders pulled down by the gravity of not giving Komal some moment of peace at the end, even if he had only pretended to forgive her. Then he leaned in towards Saavik.

Saavik's head came back until she made herself stop the reaction, looking as stiff as he did.

_What was that about?_ Even Spock looked askance at Arik hugging what McCoy knew to be the boundary of a Vulcan's personal space. Sure it was a little too close, but he hadn't touched her. That shouldn't be enough to make Saavik look like she had seen a ghost.

Kirk started saying something about it to her, but Spock held up a hand. Arik got his shoulders back and less sick-green in the face. "I can't sit here and mope. It doesn't do any good."

She vaulted her eyebrows. "Excellent. The Adepts will arrive in two point three five hours. You could prepare or aid in preparing the others."

He didn't smile, but it was in his eyes even his back was stiff from forcing himself not to slump. "I'll see you then." He toughened up his jaw line and if he still couldn't be called calm, he had found some strength.

She had shaken off whatever it was when she reached them. "I apologize for the delay, sirs."

"It was necessary," Spock said before anyone else could say anything. "We were discussing the latest attack and the possibility it was caused by a meld with Healer T'Juri. You investigated another possibility?"

"I have and I must disagree with the theory of the meld causing this latest attack."

_Figures. What Vulcan isn't going to argue–!_

McCoy told himself to knock it off, but all those empty beds and the dead faces staring out from Micar's mural... the place was haunted, even to someone who didn't believe in ghosts.

"Based on what we experienced, I speculate this is a manner of attack we have seen previously and I therefore reviewed the recordings of A'kornora's and Komal's deaths. The facts agree." She brought up a report on the system where Salok the pediatrician had helped McCoy investigate patient records in what seemed an eon ago. She stepped aside so they all could see. "Their asphyxiation lasted exactly fourteen seconds. As in all other factors of the disease, no physical cause has been found."

Kirk's lips pressed together and the rest of him went still, with that all too familiar energy right under the surface. The Romulan weapon of a glowing box with alternating lights filled the left hand side of the screen as Spock's own report scrawled alongside of it.

_It kills its victims through oxygen deprivation in fourteen seconds. _The same as the two hybrids just now in the ward. McCoy's bile rose even higher in his throat.

"How?" he asked before he could stop himself. He had the answer as soon as he thought of the question. "_Another_subconscious suggestion!"

Saavik agreed. "To mimic the asphyxiation of the weapon. This report was previously available to all members of the medical team. I do note Healer T'Juri was not given access to it, nor were any others on the newly assigned medical staff."

"Asphyxiation," Spock murmured in that calm, matter of fact way that McCoy had always hated in times like this. It didn't mean none of this didn't bother Spock; after all, look at Saavik. She was just as calm and _she_ was the dying from it. For all they knew, the same mental order that destroyed Komal could be in Saavik's head right now. And they couldn't go after it in fear of setting it off.

Kirk grabbed the back of the chair in a tight fist. "It wasn't enough that he had to make people relive the starvation and dehydration deaths."

His eyes flew to Saavik, but she made no sign of his referring to her own imminent death. "We have already surmised that the purpose of the disease is to undergo the suffering experienced by the Vulcans captured on the Romulan colony. Such experiences would include the oxygen deprivation deaths of those used as test subjects for the weapons. It would include as well the _kalifee v'rekor_ deaths."

McCoy whispered, "Micar and Ny'Jul."

"As well as Eitan and Kf'iskjyk, Doctor. It would explain their sudden change in decision to commit suicide rather than the plans to which they had committed themselves moments earlier."

Kirk leaned over the chair he still held tight. "It also explains what happened to you on the _Aerfen_. Whoever this is infected you with the mental suggestion for the disease and then wiped out that memory."

"I have also speculated as much, Captain."

But Spock disagreed. "Not 'wiped out', Saavik. I suggest the memory was repressed."

"Indeed?" She frowned in thought. "On what facts do you base the distinction, sir?"

"The existing evidence testified to your security access being used to remove ship's records. We have speculated he gained this access himself. However, someone with the skill level necessary to violate your security codes would know to remove the incriminating traces. That is not what happened. Nor is it what happened at the stasis chambers with the technical removal of the security video. It does, however, reflect the structure of the disease itself, such as the lack of variety in Phase II symptoms."

McCoy got it the same time as Kirk, but Jim said it first. "_Literal_ instructions! He gave explicit _orders _on what to do and didn't let in any personal experience! Like the Phase II problem Daniel and Rrelthiz found."

Saavik's frown grew as she looked from one to the other. "I do not understand."

"It's like this, Saavik," McCoy explained. It felt so good to know something again. "When this person created the disease, he did it with a list of commands that your mind had to carry out. It's almost like a computer program controlling your subconscious. That part's clear."

She nodded. "Captain Spock and I discussed this as well."

And now trying to cure the disease could trigger another death like it had with A'kornora and maybe even Komal. Only the Adepts coming from Gol and Seleya were trusted to attempt melds or design a meditation technique to let Saavik and the others cure themselves. Even they weren't going to do anything until they were sure their slightest attempt didn't kill the very few survivors. But that took time, and for someone like Vi'hai, they didn't have enough.

McCoy had a mental image of a hourglass with only a few grains of sand left to fall to the bottom. _There's only six of them left now. _He swallowed. "The only time we've seen variants show up between – say, you and Ny'Jul – is when the instruction was broad enough that your body could act out its experience. Phase I told you to have vertigo and lose your hand and eye coordination."

She finished his explanation. "I have a set of personal experiences differing from the others and therefore act with a variant in my actions. However, you have seen the instructions disallowing such experience and relate it to the security breach on the _Aerfen_?"

"Phase II showed no variance in anyone that was infected. Everything about it was exactly the same for each patient."

Jim jumped in for that one. "And now we're seeing that again. Saavik, this person hasn't shown any technical skills when it comes to security, communications or any computer systems."

"Aye, sir. It is why we theorized an accomplice may be used." Her frown turned into upraised eyebrows. "I understand. The most logical way to remove the _Aerfen _records with such limited system skills is not to breach my security, but to order _me_ to remove them. And you suggest his instruction was literal with too limited a focus."

"Exactly! He told you to remove the records when he should have told you to remove _all traces_ of his being there! Or at least_asked_ you what was the best way to do it. If he had done that, you would have gotten rid of the evidence that your access removed those records. Instead, he tied your hands on what you could do."

Saavik's only reaction to someone tampering with her mind to such a horrible degree was an infinitesimal Vulcan pause. It always looked to McCoy like the Vulcan shutdown for that tiny moment while the cause of it sank down each level of control, without their emotions lashing out - or letting out something private. "Might it also explain the headaches I experienced when questioned about that time period?"

Spock jerked in place. "You experienced headaches?"

"Yes, I reported them to Dr. McCoy."

"And I couldn't find anything that caused them." He tried to keep the defensiveness out of his voice, but he couldn't help it when Spock drilled that stare into his head like that. "Why?"

"From my studies on Gol, Doctor, I know Vulcans can suffer from two types of memory suppression. Both list headaches as a sign of the repression."

McCoy folds his arms across his chest and dug his fingers into his biceps. Not because of Spock, but because of himself. "I put it down to the disease. I would have _known _better if I had talked to Sorel or someone else."

Spock gave in. "You had every right to do so. It is only hindsight that allows us to see the other diagnoses. Such speculation serves no purpose."

Not even Saavik blamed him, but McCoy would feel it for a long time.

She was saying, "The guard stationed at the stasis chamber also reported head pain, did he not? As well as the debilitating condition Vi'hai, Jdehn, and Mekhai experienced." She paused, maybe because she made the connection only then. She wouldn't do it for a dramatic effect. "It occurred during an attempt to leave the planet, perhaps permanently."

Kirk moved to stand next to the chair, and unconsciously mimicked his normal pattern to stand or even lean on his captain's seat on the _Enterprise_. "So it probably wasn't some new affect of Phase III. You're suggesting it was another new attack on them, to make them come back to Vulcan."

She nodded, and so did Spock. "As a possibility, Captain. It does maintain their accessibility although it no longer seems necessary. Perhaps whoever is responsible merely desires personal contact to witness our destruction."

"That's disgusting!" It sounded like such a cliché, but McCoy didn't know he had even said it out loud until everyone turned to look at him.

Spock's eyes were far away as he looked back in total understanding. "Agreed, Doctor. Saavik," he came back from wherever he had been. Probably picturing what could happen to her. "You can no longer be alone. Nor can any of the others. Security should be assigned to each of you at the minimum."

_She doesn't like that_.

But she knew it made sense. Even if the killer had already implanted another way for her to die besides Phase III, as he had done with all the others lately, or the way to make sure she stayed here, letting him get to her whenever he felt like it was dangerous. And maybe, just maybe, he _hadn't_ gotten to her yet and they could keep him away.

Or catch him when he tried.

Kirk took pity on her. "One of us could do it instead of Security or the VSE. I'd volunteer, so would Spock and McCoy. And I'm sure Amanda and Sarek would help. At least it wouldn't be strangers."

"It would also provide me with a katra bearer if we continue to be unable to remove the mental trigger for the disease."

_Just when I thought I couldn't feel worse_.

"That is," Saavik gazed at Kirk before turning her eyes to Spock, "if those who volunteered also agreed to the possibility of their being needed for the task. I do not presume."

Spock said something in Vulcan which meant his answer was for her alone. She gave the barest nod, maybe so she didn't have to take her eyes away.

"I still volunteer," Kirk said and gave a warm smile. "I'd be honored if it came to it. So would McCoy, wouldn't you, Bones?"

"Absolutely. It'd be a blessing after carrying Spock around."

Jim didn't know what he was agreeing to, and McCoy almost wanted to insist that it be him who took her to Seleya. It was the least he could do after failing her as her doctor. But even with all of that, he hoped for their sakes that if it came down to it, Spock would be the one with her.

A chime sounded on the system. "Captain James Kirk, you have an incoming transmission from Commodore Bass."

"Jim!" McCoy couldn't believe it. "Are you still putting up with that--"

_That_ showed up onscreen. "Kirk! I thought we agreed I'd be getting regular updates from you or Spock! So why haven't I heard anything in days except some report about an updated body count at the hospital? Maybe you can even explain why Starfleet is wasting resources on this when someone is obviously doing us a favor by getting rid of any goddamn Roms and their spawn that Vulcan has shoved down our throats!"

Saavik did another one of those pauses where everything about her froze for one brief second and in that quick cessation, Spock moved to get to the comm screen even as Kirk started to yell. She beat them both to it. She slipped in front of them and must have looked enormous on Bass' screen.

"Commodore." Her voice was like her body language: professional, calm... unyielding.

Bass had seen her file of course. Starfleet would have sent it when the _Aerfen_ had to leave her behind, and then the update about her inactive status. McCoy gave a silent cheer that the bloated excuse for a human being got caught with his pants down by her jumping in like that. "Lieutenant Saavik."

"Yes, sir. We have our report on our progress in this investigation. We now know the disease's cause, although its creator remains unknown and the success of its cure has proven unstable. However, the facts reported to you are correct. We have a 98 death rate with only six of those infected currently surviving. This count includes myself, Commodore."

His ruddy faced grew extra red with temper, but she hadn't given him one thing to complain about. "That's sad news, Lieutenant. I hope you can get that cure to work."

_Liar!_

But McCoy egged Saavik on with her approach and Jim grinned like the Cheshire cat from Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland _fable. It was the best thing that had happened in days.

"Your support honors us, Commodore."

_Oh, beautiful!_

"We will endeavor to maintain your timetable for status reports." Spock stayed at her shoulder which made Bass still focus on her. "Do you require anything in addition, Commodore?"

Bass' mouth opened and snapped shut when Spock lifted an eyebrow. "No! Just don't let it happen again!"

"Agreed, sir. Vulcan out."

McCoy let out a crow of triumph and Kirk gave the ultimate compliment, "Excellent work, Lieutenant."

"Excellent isn't the word for it! It was so good, I could kiss you!"

Saavik took a large step back from McCoy.


	32. Chapter 32

"Saavik."

The colored lights from the office's large data screens played along her dark, bowed head as she finished checking data on her terminal. Kirk gave her a warm look. "Go to the Adepts. We can handle everything here."

He was lying and they both knew it. The large screens all along the walls displayed their attempt to again crossmatch Hellguard's hybrids and a doctor who had the knowledge, skill, and opportunity to infect at least most of them.

No matches.

"It is unnecessary, Captain. Those with the most immediate need require the Adepts' aid more than I do. Discovering a means to safely remove such a deep level of conditioning will require some time. In addition, there is Mekhai, Arik, and Jdehn available to them. If I can be of some purpose, they will contact me." She tilted her head. "Are you informing me, sir, that you prefer I no longer work on the investigation?"

"Why would I think that?"

"Captain Spock and I have speculated that I may suffer from a subconscious suggestion to remove data that would lead to a solution."

That was a damn good point. They had no idea of how far her brainwashing extended, and the killer had ordered her to remove information before.

A good officer did what was necessary when lives were at stake, so Kirk mulled over yanking her from the project until Spock's voice slipped into his thoughts.

"As we have no information proving such a directive exists, I did not remove her. However, I am monitoring her work in the event such a problem occurs."

"Good idea."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "It was hers."

Kirk grinned, but it faded as he caught sight of the vitamin drink and protein biscuits next to her on a stand. The first marks of Phase III etched along her mouth, and undercut her eyes and cheekbones. McCoy had lectured her that she couldn't stop taking them even though the disease was basically brainwashing her to be ill. She was still sick and needed to fight off the starvation and dehydration from the phase.

_And actually take them! I know you. Don't get lost in doing something and forget to eat!_

She followed Kirk's gaze and frowned, probably remembering the same lecture. But she picked up the drink and swallowed most of what was left.

Ever since he heard the disease was psychosomatic, Kirk couldn't shake off their argument the other night about Spock forcing the meld on Valeris. He still thought it had been necessary, but he was haunted by the image of some vague figure reaching and pressing hard fingertips to her face, injecting her with the disease until she flung her head back and screamed.

One by one, healers' names went to red as they failed the crossmatching parameters, and then grayed out as the computer moved to the next name. Reams of names flew past on each screen.

She suddenly hesitated at her station, her head cocked to the side again as her mind latched on to something, then she keyed in the data. Across the way, Spock's eyebrows came up.

"What is it?" Kirk asked.

Instead of getting his answer, the hospital contacted them. Sajjan had tried removing the killing demon in her subconscious. She had failed and died. Her last words had been: _I should never have been born._

A pall hung in the air before he replied, "Acknowledged. Kirk out." There was nothing more to say.

And then, on the large screen on his left, one name turned to gold. It had reached the minimum amount of crossmatches to target the first alert level. A bar slid down from the healer's name to the rows of hybrids and connected to one survivor's name, and then branched to another and then to another. Gold line after gold line stretched out as dates and times starting filling in underneath for when he had treated them.

"_Saavik_." Kirk breathed.

"I noticed his name was missing from the list. I included him to be thorough, despite his obvious alibi for the later attacks."

So this was what had caused she and Spock to look like that right before the hospital called. Kirk gave silent thanks for Vulcan efficiency. "He _fits_. He fits everything we've found out."

"Indeed." Spock came from around his station and stood behind Kirk's shoulder, in line with Saavik on his left. The screens surrounded their small triangle as the healer's name crossed the threshold point where it matched enough names to change to blue. So did all its matches, and the growing amount of color flickered over them.

The name in blue read Mal'Shik.

_Mal'Shik!_ Mal'Shik who was one of the thirty-three survivors who Spock and Sarek had rescued from Hellguard. Mal'Shik who was Srre's half-brother. Mal'Shik who had been brilliant healer if his patients hadn't recoiled from having a half-Romulan touching them.

Mal'Shik whose specialty had been the mind.

"They said he would have been as great as Sorel, maybe even better," Kirk whispered. He suddenly punched his fist into his palm. "We've been chasing a _dead man_!"

Because Mal'Shik had died in Phase I before Kirk had even heard about the disease.

Saavik spoke up. "You asked me before, Captain, who would I first suspect as an enemy?"

Kirk replied, "And you said 'Besides each other'– I should have listened. We said whoever was responsible had to know about what the Romulans did on the colony. Who knows better than someone who was there?"

"Jdehn said something of a similar nature," Spock added. "I requested her list of anyone she knew to be anti-Romulan. She said she would have to included herself."

"And as a healer involved with Hellguard, he had access to all the report files. Not that he needed them. Everything points to him. Dasan couldn't be sure if he was picking the right person because it was _Mal'Shik_ who came on the _Aerfen_. He could only pick someone who had a similar body type. It also explains why we couldn't find records for someone who traveled there. Spock, get Dasan an image of Mal'Shik, see if he can positively ID him!"

Spock had walked away while Kirk had been talking. "I am already in the process of doing so, Captain. As well as searching passenger records for all transports at that time."

"Good. Unless he used a false name, I'm betting you'll find it. Don't!" he suddenly ordered Saavik. She had been staring hard at the screen, trying to remember Mal'Shik coming on her ship, but Kirk didn't want her risking it. She might trigger whatever trap the young healer had waiting for her, like Sajjan and A'kornora. "Saavik, didn't you tell me that Mal'Shik tried melding with you once before?"

She pulled her eyes away from the screens – and her search for memories. "Yes, sir. He was examining me after the _fal tor pan_. Sorel, however, assigned him to other duties and did the meld himself."

"He saved your life." The vague figure in his nightmarish image took form: now he knew who had been the one to force a meld on her later on the _Aerfen_. Kirk was sure of it. "Mal'Shik probably meant to infect you then and would have if Sorel hadn't interrupted."

And if she was infected that long ago, she'd be dead now.

"He only managed to give you the disease right before he died," Kirk finished. "Even the fact that Phase II has no variations fits. At his age, he hadn't gone through– the experience himself. He only passed what he knew from his studies. My guess is he didn't treat female patients or he figured he had made his point and didn't bother with the differences."

Saavik admitted, "Male healers rarely treat female patients for _pon farr_ and only if female healers are not available."

Kirk didn't bother asking why. It didn't matter now. What mattered was that he knew he had his enemy. "We can verify that along with Dasan's ID later. But he's the only one who fits all the points."

"Except one, Captain." Saavik pointed to three names on the data screens that remained unmatched with Mal'Shik. "He had died before Mekhai, Jdehn, and Arik were infected."

But that didn't throw off Kirk. "It shows he _did _have an accomplice. That's who infected the last three. _And_ killed the people in the stasis chambers."

"As well as the new subconscious conditioning for the asphyxiation and _kalifee v'rekor_ deaths."

_We have another killer to find_.

"We'll have to find some trace of when Mal'Shik would have been able to bring somebody else into his plan. Odds are it was after he infected you."

She paused to think a second and then her eyebrows went up. "Because no evidence exists that anyone else was involved prior to his death. No attacks were made other than those perpetrated by Mal'Shik himself."

"Exactly. So who would he have contact with back then. Sorel? He seems to be Mal'Shik's mentor, although then why didn't Sorel correct the variation problem in Phase II? No, wait! _Srre_. Srre's his brother and he said he joined the medical team because of the disease."

Spock, who had been content to listen to the other two bounce ideas back and forth, now nodded. "The timing does coincide. Srre failed at Gol because of his hostility towards his brother. He used this lesson to correct his wrong behavior towards Mal'Shik and the other survivors. Their reconciliation happened after Saavik was most likely infected. However, I must point out, Captain, Srre's statement of innocence was verified."

"Then he fooled the verifier."

Saavik said, "That is impossible, sir, even with a Vulcan's control of the body."

He answered her, deadpan, "We do the impossible all the time. Maybe Srre learned a technique at Gol or from Mal'Shik. Or..."

Kirk stared into lines of data on the screens, the way he studied so many tactical displays on the _Enterprise_. The way he could stare out into the nothingness in space and put together where the enemy lay and how they were going to attack.

"Mal'Shik attacks through the mind. Spock! He attacks _through the mind_."

Spock's eyebrow went up. "You suggest–"

"That he _infected_ Srre! Not with the same kind of conditioning that he used in the disease, but something else. Something that makes him carry on where Mal'Shik left off, something makes him act _like_ Mal'Shik! The one disease makes people die, but this one makes him kill! What about Mal'Shik's katra? Could Srre still be carrying it?"

"Negative, Captain." Saavik had answered and brought up Mal'Shik's file to the center screen. "Srre was not his katra bearer, he had chosen his sister. However, he later reversed his decision and did not choose to have his katra saved at all. It was lost at his death."

"_Dammit_. I thought we had it."

But Spock folded his hands behind his back. "Perhaps we do. Perhaps he chose to meld with someone privately."

"_Wait_." Kirk's eyes dashed around the floor as he tried to pull the something out of memory that had jerked at Spock's words. "That night at the restaurant, Amanda said something about Srre and Mal'Shik. That they reconciled. McCoy said it too, that Srre realized he was wrong and--" He snapped his fingers. "And went to see Mal'shik before he died."

Saavik turned away from the onscreen records. They couldn't give any more answers.. "We may have difficulty verifying if this happened."

"But we have enough to talk to Srre again. Is anyone still working on the medical team who was there when Mal'Shik had Phase III?"

Spock didn't have to look it up. "T'Ahiyya."

"Then let's talk to her and let's contact Commander Stron as soon as we hear back from Dasan on the _Aerfen_."

He started leaving the room, Spock felling into place next to him, but they both stopped when Saavik made no move to join them. She leaned over her terminal instead. "In the event we are correct, I have others I must contact."

Her face was set in hard lines.


	33. Chapter 33

The burgeoning sunset framed Srre's body, and painted colors into the creases and folds of the black meditation robe he wore over his brown healer's clothing. Like Sarek's estate, Srre's family home looked out into the desert and from where they stood in the house's garden, the open vista was at his back. As night started to come, the warm breezes had the first touches of coolness trailing them, and they played with the ends of his robe. His whole frame was still out of calmness and serenity as he read the padd in his hand.

McCoy, on the other hand, felt the tension eat his stomach and spine with ragged, fanged bites until he had to break the silence. "Srre?"

The younger healer handed the padd back to Spock. "You have done well gathering your evidence. Both the nurse's positive identification and Commander Stron's discovery of the travel data place my brother on Saavik's ship." He gave a nod to Subcommander Soluk who lingered behind Kirk and Sarek, out of the way. "All of his appointments with the other infected patients have been confirmed, as well as his access to all the data required for these attacks." His eyes fell and his voice drew quiet. "I would not have considered Mal' Shik capable of this. But then, I did not know or understand my brother. The fault is mine."

McCoy had suggested coming out into garden instead of staying inside as Srre had offered. Out here, they put some distance from the family's personal surroundings. It was enough that Srre's father had most likely stood in the same spot inside as he said his goodbyes to his wife and children, unknowingly leaving them for the last time. Or that it might have been the same place where they got the news that he was missing, followed by discovering his capture and death, and a boy born from it: a feral Mal'Shik.

Spock said, "You accept the possibility of Mal'Shik's guilt?"

"I do. As I said, you brought together a formidable case."

"You do not, however, accept the second conclusion of our evidence?"

Srre folded his hands behind him. "Spock, like you, I have studied at Gol. I would know if I carried such conditioning as you suggest."

Kirk stepped forward, as calm as the young healer. "You don't think we made an equally good case on this point? At least enough for logic to consider it a possibility?"

"That I have murdered sixteen innocents, Captain, and brought about the imminent deaths of three more?" An edge cut Srre's voice, until he summoned calm again. "There are others who suit this possibility more so than I do."

Kirk gave a twisted nod. "We considered them – but only you, S'ad, and T'Ahiyya went to the orbital station to meet Jdehn's ship. Someone attacked her and the other two there, and the disease showed up in their systems right after it."

"That admits S'ad is equally as capable as a suspect."

"Except our evidence doesn't support him. S'ad wouldn't have left out the lack of variation in Phase II symptoms, and that's just one example. We have something else that we didn't list in that report. Spock."

Like he had done for so many years, the Vulcan smoothly picked up where Kirk left off. "As a student of Gol, Srre, you understand we have two serious conditions stemming from memory repression."

"I do. I also know the _Fullara_ is an obsolete practice. It has been a century since someone has ordered an Adept to repress a subject's memories of an event."

"Granted. However, memory repression does still occur and still contains the same dangers. You understand the symptoms of these conditions."

Srre nodded. They gave off an air of being nothing more than two colleagues discussing interesting business. "I know this as well."

"The memory engrams in the dorsal region of the subject's hippocampus are disrupted and cause physical damage. If the memories attempt to resurface, the trauma may manifest itself with symptoms including instability in the nervous system, headache, and an inability to reach levels of meditation or focus."

"Yes, I agree."

"We spoke to Sorel," Kirk said bluntly. "You went to him with these exact symptoms."

Srre stopped.

"Srre," McCoy said again. He hadn't said much since he got here. He had certainly planned to say a lot. In fact, he had been about to insist on coming along to confront Srre when Kirk had asked him to come. He didn't know Jim's reasons for having him here, but he came to rail against Srre over killing their patients. To _hate_ Srre. Now he found himself wanting to help the young man who stood so innocent and unaware of what Mal'Shik had done to him. Srre was as sick as Saavik–

–except Saavik died while Srre killed.

_What the hell do we do now?_

The doctor inside of him gave the same answer it always did: heal the suffering.

"I don't know why your planet has these reasons for repressing memories. Spock tells me the one practice, this _Fullara, _is done deliberately_ – _I don't know why."

"Vulcan _doesn't_ do it anymore, Leonard."

_He's so damned young_.

"But I do know that on my planet, we do similar things. We've had this kind of mental conditioning for centuries. Maybe even millennia. We got a lot of names for it, where someone's mind is programmed to act in ways they would never do normally. And they don't even know the conditioning is there."

Srre held up a hand forestalling the lecture with all the arrogance of youth assuming it knew everything. If it had been Spock, McCoy would have had a sharp comment to make, but instead, he wished he could shake the feeling that Srre had been reduced to the defensive student. "I have educated myself with Federation cultures other than my own, both in fact and in fiction. I have read your Richard Condon's _Manchurian Candidate_ and René Eché varria's _The Mind's Eye_ as well as our own _Hidden Distortions_ by T'sia. Your books call it a _sleeper agent_."

Kirk perked up at that. "Why were you reading that sort of information?"

"Do you think you have trapped me, Captain? If only you did not think it necessary. However, it is not true. A woman of your world once gave such fiction as a reason not to have my brother examine her. She believed a half-Romulan would distort her mind for the sheer pleasure of attacking a human and she said so. I read the examples she gave to better argue against her theories."

The rest of what he wanted to say died in his throat as they all remembered Mal'Shik _had_ distorted people's minds. Not that woman's, but the ones who had escaped Hellguard with him.

McCoy spoke into the heavy quiet. "Srre, your mind doesn't know it suffers from this conditioning, but your _body_ does! That's why you're showing all the symptoms you talked to Sorel about. It's trying to make you see what's going on!"

"Leonard, again, I have learned advanced techniques for mental disciplines. I know my own mind."

It wasn't working. Their plan was to confront Srre with the evidence and get him into custody so he couldn't make any further attacks; but he had his feet planted into the ground and wasn't budging.

"Srre, you _can't_ know your own mind under these circumstance, anymore than anyone else who is affected."

"With all due respect to our patients, they do not have the same training as me."

McCoy decided he didn't dare look to Spock or Kirk for help. He already was losing this argument, and couldn't look even weaker. He wanted to shout, _See reason, dammit!, _and would have if he had been arguing with Spock.

Sarek folded his hands in front of him and strode into the center of the garden. "A question, Srre. Is this your logic that answers for you or a defensiveness?"

Spock frowned. "Father..."

Sarek held up a hand, then folded it with the other one again. "Srre?"

The younger Vulcan steadied under those venerable eyes until he could dip his head in a bow. "Your question is excellent, Sarek. I have forgotten myself."

_I'll be damned_.

Sarek hadn't added to the youth's feeling of attack. He had given him an anchor point by taking command of the situation. Maybe he had even brought back memories of the solid father who once steadied the son.

"We do not come here to condemn you, Srre. Nor to serve as your tribunal. We present findings that allows for a possibility. Does not your sense of reason agree?"

"It does." Srre grew tall under Sarek's eye. "It does indeed."

"Then we are agreed. You will accompany us as we return. You will have ample opportunity and full resources to make your argument. This is, after all, a just society. The burden lies on those who would prove guilt, not on you to prove innocence."

_Thank you, Sarek!_ Because McCoy had thought they were being driven down a path of dragging Srre out of here.

Sarek turned first to lead the way. Kirk and Soluk hung at the sides to put Srre in between them, boxing him in between the six of them.

Except Srre didn't move.

In an odd voice, he asked, "What will happen if what you say is correct?"

Kirk tried to be nonchalant, but McCoy knew better. "We'll help you remove the conditioning." When Srre did nothing else, he stumbled into pointing out, "And you can help us remove the disease from everyone else who is infected."

"But none of that will remove the murders."

Sarek looked like he was trying to figure this out as much as everyone else. "Your conditioning would be taken into account." Srre's eyes dropped to the ground again. "Do you ask if you can avoid accepting any responsibility?"

Srre stood there, somehow unbowed even with his head lowered. "I ask if my brother can be spared."

A snaking fear wound around McCoy's insides. "Srre?"

Nothing, and then in the next second, the eyes flicked up at a sound. Five forms emerged out of the twilight closing around his home. Mekhai led on the left with Arik trailing him, while Saavik came into view on the right, Jdehn with her, guiding a chair carrying Vi'hai, too weak to walk.

"What is this?" Sarek demanded.

Vi'hai answered, with a voice that had to be forced out of his chest. "With all respect, Ambassador, it is our right. We only came to ask him if it was true."

Sarek appeared to accept that and then turned. "Saavik."

But her head had cocked to almost lean on her shoulder. She found Srre's uplifted eyes and suddenly straightened. "What have you discovered?"

Kirk stiffened and then snapped at her, "Why?"

"The behavior." She turned back to the quiet form in brown and black. "It does not belong to Srre."

The downcast head gave a bare movement of side to side. "Of course. _You_ noticed."

Mekhai's upper lip curled into a snarl. "_Mal'Shik_."

"Jim!"

Kirk's face reflected every bit of McCoy's shock. They had thought Mal'Shik had infected Srre the way he had designed the mental condition in the hybrids. That he had changed his brother to go out unconsciously and kill when a trigger activated his subconscious programming.

But it was much more than that. Mal'Shik had actually _grafted_ his own persona on the conditioning. When Srre was triggered, some other form of himself didn't come out, _Mal'Shik_ did. No denying it. Everything about Srre had changed: his body language, his speech pattern, the very nature of his soul pouring out from his eyes.

McCoy grieved for the brilliant mind that had created such a thing, for the lives it could have saved instead. For all the help and _good_ it could have done. Then he added Srre's loss of seeking forgiveness and being turned into a weapon instead.

The _waste_. The heartbreaking waste.

The question got pulled out of Kirk. "Why?"

Srre's face with Mal'Shik's expression turned to him. "Why is a broad question, Captain. Could you be more specific?"

"Mal'Shik." Jdehn spat it out. "You always were a knife's pain to the gut."

He had a glint of near amusement on Srre's face. "Which one of us wasn't?"

Vi'hai struggled to speak. "Is that what this is about?" His breath came in wheezes. "Revenge? After all this time?"

All amusement died in Mal'Shik along with too much else. "Haven't you learned _anything_? If I wanted revenge, I would not have done any of this!"

Kirk licked his lips and got control over his shock fast. "You can understand our surprise. We thought you hadn't passed on your katra."

"And I did not. This," he gestured down the length of Srre's body, "is a facade. A mere fraction of who I once was."

"But why bother at all?"

"If I passed on my katra, you would have discovered my actions much sooner. Srre would not have been able to control the elements of my persona from showing forth."

McCoy knew that was true from personal experience. He hadn't been able to stop Spock from coming through.

"It also would have limited what I could do as well as meaning Srre would be conscious of what was happening. This method gained me time and mobility. And I was sincere when I stated that my plan was to spare my brother if at all possible."

"But why do it at all?" Arik's voice was a high shout.

Mal'Shik made an aggressive move forward. "Have _none_ of you paid attention?" Arik quivered, but refused to budge. "How have you not seen the purpose behind this? Each phase had an exact lesson, the whole plan had an _exact_ purpose! Even now, you claim not to see it?"

He swung on McCoy. "You will understand." _Was that a fact or an order? _"An abomination cannot have benefits, for it will dull people's sense of its horror and instead make them accept it as a price to be paid."

If McCoy thought nothing else could shock him, he was wrong. Kirk and Spock moved closer.

"Bones?"

"I said that, Jim. He's quoting me. ...But this isn't what I meant."

"Why not, Doctor? Because you have reaped the benefits? Because the benefits are people you know such as Saavik? You have another expression on Earth: _the end does not justify the means_."

"I am here, Mal'Shik." Saavik had moved closer. When had she done that? Mekhai was on line with her across the garden with Jdehn a few paces back and centered. "You need not speak as if I were not."

He glanced from her to Mekhai, taking in the three of them, but McCoy warned her silently: _Let me handle this._ Amazingly, she listened. He thought he'd have to get Spock or Jim to make it an order. She gave some signal he couldn't see that kept Mekhai and Jdehn reigned in... barely. Their tension quivered the air.

But McCoy had to keep Mal'Shik _here_. They needed him, and if he disappeared again, maybe for good, it was all over. Already his eyes darted to Saavik and Mekhai walling him in.

So McCoy kept trying. "That is true, but... we're talking about _lives_."

"Yes. Lives." Darkness drew over Mal'Shik's expression like the sky as the sun set. "You also stated you would willingly die and make that decision for those you know rather than accept life from an abominable practice."

"I was talking about a _cure_. I would refuse any treatments or cures that were created from the horrible treatment of innocent lives!"

"Which is the same statement I am making." An earnest note came back in his voice. "The lives that were destroyed. To have a Saavik, you must destroy another. And because you have served with her, you have become what you warned others about. You are dulled to the destruction of someone else. Or are incapable of direct rather than passive action."

Mekhai shifted his balance.

"No," Sarek called out. "He seeks not to add more destruction to what has already been done."

"He's right," Kirk added. "All of you dying will not bring back the people who died on that colony. You're a healer. You wanted to _save_ people!"

Mal'Shik came right back at him. "How many times have you used violence to end lives because they murdered innocents? How many other acts of violence have you condoned as justified for the _perception_ of the greater good?" He turned to Spock. "I have heard about Valeris and how the Federation claimed such a means was necessary."

Jdehn, Arik, even Vi'hai couldn't look at Spock now. Only Saavik stayed unshaken.

Spock grew as formidable and expansive as Sarek had done with Srre. "Is this how you view the _Symmetry_'s risk in rescuing you? And all the efforts to give you a new life?"

But Mal'Shik wasn't Srre. "Sir, I hold you in the highest esteem. What you and my family have done for me cannot be repaid. But it does not change facts if you refuse to see them, even out of generosity."

Even Spock couldn't reach him.

_Can I_?

Mal'Shik didn't have a father, but he had mentors, healers like Sorel. And he apparently had been very affected by the conference where McCoy had spoken or he wouldn't keep quoting it.

"Son."

Mal'Shik gave a slow, almost sad, shake of his head. "I am not your son, Doctor."

McCoy glanced over to Mekhai, remembering when they had a similar conversation in the restaurant when Jdehn's ship first arrived. "I wish you were. It'd be an honor. You're right to bring my words back to me. I meant them. I didn't want someone using somebody else as a guinea pig – a test subject to be tortured, and then use the test results like they came to me clean of all that. I wouldn't do that to anyone who died on that colony."

"But you are! Can you not see it?"

_He's listening. He's not acting like it, but you got him listening. By god, whatever you do, McCoy, don't blow this!_

Soluk moved slowly up from behind, but Spock stopped him and McCoy sent him a silent thank you. Anything could set Mal'Shik off, and they had to save Srre and the five people still infected.

"Tell me, son. I don't see it."

Mal'Shik swept Srre's hand to encompass the other five survivors from Hellguard.

"Starfleet uses what's been bred and forged in Saavik. People in the Federation use Jdehn for trafficking and Mekhai for _entertainment_. The Science Academy reaps the benefits of what is bred in me."

He twisted truth to fit his madness and it scared the hell out of McCoy...

...but what made him sick was realizing, _He doesn't do it deliberately. _ His self-loathing heard what McCoy and the others had said, and he thought he heard the truth. Because his demons told him it was the truth.

_And I bet those demons wear Romulan faces_.

And, he swallowed, probably too many Federation ones.

Kirk gave him a sharp glance, wondering if McCoy was giving up, if he had to step in. McCoy didn't bother shaking his head; he kept talking.

"But isn't that better than having _nothing_ good come from all this pain? My god, Mal' Shik, you're brilliant! The ability to create something so intricate as this - getting the mind to do so much to the body through a mental suggestion - even able to put in the later suggestions like with Micar."

"Not so brilliant." He scowled hard at himself. "I made so many mistakes. I miscalculated how long it would take me to reach everyone. By the time I gained access to Saavik, Phase III had progressed to far. I was dying and leaving things undone. That's when I remembered that woman who spat at me about making her act unconsciously and devised this." His hand swept down Srre's body again. It dropped heavily by his side. "Even so, I would have spared my brother... although, I – did not believe him when he said he no longer held me responsible for our father's death. I thought – he would understand why this was necessary."

McCoy wished he could have touched that hurting soul. "You still have a great gift, Mal'Shik."

"_Gift_? Any gifts I was given by being born were paid for with an unholy price. Every day we live is a crime with spilt blood as the foundation. You speak the words, Doctor, but you cannot do the actions that you demanded. I could."

"_Bones_." Kirk almost hissed. "Move away!"

_I lost him._

Mal'Shik turned to the other five and started to shout, but Jdehn and Mekhai broke ranks and charged him. Jdehn pulled a small phaser from her belt, sending Soluk into sweeping Sarek behind him as Saavik slid in front of Spock. Arik hesitated, then blocked Vi'hai with his body.

Kirk pushed McCoy out of the way and tried to break up the struggle, but Mal'Shik went down under Mekhai. He finally struggled under the muscled weight pressing on his chest and then twisted enough to call out in something that sounded like the butchered Romulan language they had spoken on Hellguard. The effect was instantaneous. Mekhai jumped off of him, then pulled himself away, his eyes turning to the dying sun on the horizon. He reached for his clothes, stripping them as he headed for the desert. Soluk ran from the wall and jumped him, Sarek helping, but even all their strength didn't seem enough against Mekhai's determination to die in the fires under the sun. He only shifted to drag them with him, into the house, to the large firepit in the courtyard.

Saavik stiffened as if she took a deep blow to the body, her eyes sunk inward. So did Vi'hai. Jdehn held her phaser easily in a loose grip and surprised Kirk with a smile.

"I have come home with blood on my wings."

He dove for her and got his hand on hers, but she threw him off and, for some reason, ran at Mal'Shik.

Who welcomed her.

He smiled at her and she smiled back. "There _is_ blood on our wings," he whispered which made her nod and lift the phaser again. At him.

He hadn't expected that. "No! Srre will die too! He is innocent!"

"You can't live. None of us can."

"I already planned this without you, Jdehn." His voice sank.

She tightened the trigger.

Except Srre re-emerged. He stared out as memory of his actions flooded his conscious. He turned his head to stare at the phaser as the bore of its muzzle stared back - Kirk shouted for Jdehn to stop, for Srre to stop her - and then...

She merely nodded. "He is gone." And turned the phaser on herself. Kirk's tackle took her to the ground as he fought to keep the phaser from her head.

During all of this, McCoy's decades of triage experience sent him to Vi'hai's side. Vi'hai was the weakest with the least strength to fight for his life... and to fight off McCoy.

_But do I let him fight it or knock him unconscious?_ Would it help or hurt if Vi'hai wasn't awake? Would it let him fight the disease's conditioning with more time or render him defenseless?

No time to ask anyone. Vi'hai began gasping for air.

Saavik clawed her throat, choking, not able to breathe, and Spock came up behind her. His hand held steady near her face, but under the command of the disease, she fought hard against his help. Spock's hand hovered as doubt swept over his face for less than a second.

_Do it!_

Then Spock's free arm snaked around her, holding her in place while the fingers near her temple shifted to the right positions. He forced the meld.

Saavik arched violently under his hand, her mouth stretched in an effort to scream, in an effort to breathe.

And McCoy, with a sinking pit in his chest, remembered they had only fourteen seconds starting now.


	34. Chapter 34

Saavik woke up in a black void. Nothing gave her a clue. She had been left uncertain in the dark, trapped within herself. This cold vacuum was _her_.

The entire universe shook on the outer layers of her presence. Something had happened to her body. The physical violent upheaval happening to it and her mind had made her unaware of her surroundings at first.

She was not alone.

Someone had melded with her. Someone was still here.

A meld by itself could be physically dangerous since it required the one who was touched to make pressure changes in the nerves, and blood vessels. Once stabilized, it brought a sensation of a strange euphoria, like the body floated. Then the subject opened their mind, so that the two minds moved together, sharing the same thoughts. It was no wonder why it so deeply personal to the Vulcan people, and part of their _private_ lives.

But whoever had initiated this meld hadn't asked for Saavik's permission. They had forced it and during a physical upheaval, even as her consciousness fought for its survival against an enemy she could not name. They had caused a meld that actually made her retreat far inside herself.

Unacceptable. She did not _retreat_. And she did not merely accept someone forcing themselves into her mind.

"I should never have been born."

The voice – she couldn't believe it. She hid from _him_? She reached out further and the presence coalesced into a visual form: a baby, Vulcan, and as alone in the darkness as her. "Spock?"

She watched him age as she had on Genesis, only now she saw him from infancy through the other ages that had happened before she had arrived on the planet. He started crawling and then walking to just appearing in infinitesimal steps in a corkscrew around her, finally reaching the first stage she saw on Genesis.

She touched his mind, but he didn't respond, so she created a visual of herself, hoping he'd react to that stimuli since he had chosen it for himself.

It was if he did treat her for _T'lokan schism_, the physical condition stemming from traumatic memory repression, and he was her _pyllora_, melding with her and acting as an observer to bring the memory into visual memory so she could reconstruct it and objectify the experience.

She crouched down by him and asked him what was wrong. He repeated the phrase, "I should never have been born."

She rushed to tell him that wasn't true, but he disappeared. She called for him, and heard him again, off to her side. "I should never have been born."

She turned, and now he was the older child from Genesis. She demanded to know why he thought this.

"I was told it," he answered. "I know it is the truth. It is a surety in me that I cannot deny."

"Spock, _who_ told you this?"

He was gone again, reappearing once more slightly off to the side and behind her, so that his spiral path continued. He answered her question. "You told me."

She stopped, both by the answer and by his age. She met the dark eyes she never thought to see again: Spock at 19, possibly early 20s. Spock at the age where she shared in his _pon farr_. Only now he stood straight and tall, hands clasped behind his back, regarding her calmly.

"You," she whispered breathlessly. She started to touch him, but pulled back. She could not believe the impact of seeing him like this again.

He nodded. "I should never have been born, Saavik."

"Spock, I would _never_ have made such a statement to you!"

He frowned, confused, and then looked up, sure of himself. "I should never have been born."

She started to argue, but he began to fade, and then suddenly stayed. She wondered why when the others had so quickly left, when he surprised her again by breaking out of the pattern happening so far.

"You somehow wish me to stay." His eyebrows suddenly shot up. "Was this when our time together...?"

So, he did have some of his memories. She nodded once, searching for the words, but he cut her off with an awed, "Fascinating."

He took a step closer, his hand hovering near hers at her side. "Saavik..." His voice deepened, aged, until it foreshadowed the way it sounded in the present.

The moment froze until he stepped back with a palpable wrench to them both.

More formal, he asked, "Can I be of any further assistance?"

"No," she said softly. "But your offer honors me."

He began to speak, stopped, and with obvious hesitation asked, "You chose an _ahtiá_ name?"

She nodded.

"Will... you tell me what it is?"

She felt a rush of warmth and it glowed from her eyes and in the aura of her presence surrounding them. She reached out, just barely touching his cheek with her fingertips. "Not to you," she said softly. "Not this time. You and I have shared so much already."

He blinked, and the lashes brushed her hand. "I... understand. Not to me, but perhaps...?" He looked now into the darkness where his other years waited.

She dropped her hand, expecting to see him morph away from her into another self. But he didn't. She suddenly realized he stayed this way because of her. "Go. I will not keep you any longer."

He reluctantly left for the next Spock, the Spock who cringed in torment on Genesis, begging her in his expression to take the pain away as she had before. It haunted her still, reappearing in some nightmares. But now he was calm. " I should never have been born, Saavik."

She rushed out the words, "Spock, where did you first learn this?"

He pointed ahead of them. And was gone.

The next came to her, and now he was as cognizant of what was going on. She didn't have to ask. He spoke: "The suggestion is buried. It is the very thing killing you."

And then he too was gone. The aging was happening more rapidly as she more quickly recognized the truth.

And now the first Spock she had actually known, the Spock she followed from a tent on Hellguard and saved from a hybrid boy intent on killing him. She asked him, wasting no time. "When you melded with me, you heard this?"

"Yes," he replied and was quickly replaced with the Spock, her teacher in the Academy. The Spock who died on _Enterprise_.

"And you took it into yourself," she realized. "The suggestion entered your own subconscious." He nodded. "Spock..."

He was gone, but no other replaced him. She addressed the dark, "Why is this killing me?"

And now the Spock here on Vulcan, fighting to save her from the disease, came to her shoulder. "Because you believe it."

"To live, Saavik, to cure the disease, you only have to do one thing: stop believing that what it says is true."

So. This was why Sajjan had died. She couldn't stop thinking that what the disease told her was true. Thus she gave into death believing the words on her lips: _I should not have been born_.

"Saavik. You _must_ no longer believe it. You are not to blame for your birth. You have the right as any other to live."

She had no words until she whispered, "In the meantime, it kills you as well." The meld joined them together. It bound them so the disease pulled him down with her, to be swallowed into it like the grasp of a black hole.

He nodded. The dark color in his eyes came from her darkness surrounding them, seeping through the visual image of himself. It testified to how deeply he had been drawn in. It had started dissolving his separateness as it engulfed him. "Together, we will--"

"Tkváyh'kth."

He stopped at the sound of his first name, his _ahtiá_ name, reflecting his true self; a secret for those closest to him. She let the image of her fade away as if drifting in wisps on a wind, and drew in his presence like one last breath.

"My name is Avrách'laba."

And before he could react, she shoved him hard, with all the force she had, and he was pushed out of the meld. It ended as violently as it began.

It might also have been the last thing they ever shared.

_Eight seconds_.


	35. Chapter 35

Kirk saw Spock stumble and nearly wince. He grabbed the Vulcan and kept him on his feet. Spock steadied himself and then--

"She knows," Spock said. "She forced me away." He reached again for her temple, but Sarek's hand suddenly grabbed his wrist and Spock could not break the grip.

"Then you will honor her choice, Spock." Spock tried to wrench away, but Sarek held fast. "I will not lose my son. Respect her right to fight this alone!"

_Ten seconds._

"Heed me!" Spock called. He ran to Vi'hai and Arik as he shouted. "Tell them not to believe what it is telling them! They deserve to be born!"

He touched Vi'hai and then Arik as he said the last, just two fingers to their temples. A mind touch, not a meld. Sarek rushed to Jdehn as Soluk took care of Mekhai.

Kirk looked desperately around. McCoy was helpless at Vi'hai's side and Soluk continued to hold down Mekhai as the younger male writhed in his grip. Jdehn's fingers dug into the ground at Kirk's feet, tearing at the soil, and Arik clawed his throat as Saavik had, as his eyes strained in his face fighting his inner demons. No one can do anything more to help them. Saavik continued to gasp for air and Kirk couldn't fathom how she was fighting anything at all when she could not even breathe.

Spock was back at her side. Kirk imagined he held his breath with her. They couldn't do anything but wait.

Like the destroyed Srre who stared as his family's garden was on the brink of being a cemetery. "He said, the weapon is not to blame for its wielder."

_Thirteen seconds._

Vi'hai's eyes widened and then faded in light. Kirk watched the lids drift closed, and suddenly did not want to look down to where Saavik lay.

_Fourteen seconds._

A strangled noise rasped into the sounds of his hammering heart, but in the same moment, he knew it came from Spock whose eyes are locked down on Saavik. Kirk's eyes dropped and watched as Saavik's one hand was still at her throat.

Frozen.

Her head flung back and her chest finally expanded in a loud, harsh breath. The sound was echoed by Arik.

_Fifteen seconds_.

Jdehn collapsed into a pile on the ground, panting for breath as much as Arik. Dust caked her face and hair, but she raised her head and got to all fours.

Spock helped Saavik to her feet, but she kept her eyes away. "You succeeded." He said it to her at first, but he opened it to all of them immediately. "You no longer believed what the disease told you."

Mekhai spoke, perhaps for all of them. "That's not it." He rose to his feet and turned into a dark silhouette against the setting sun. "Maybe I shouldn't've been born." He stared at Srre, then turned away. His enemy wasn't kneeling there. "But that don' mean I gotta let someone kill me with it."

"Jim."

Kirk ran to McCoy and knelt next to Vi'hai whose eyes held just enough light for a few last moments. He held out a hand.

"_Arik_."

And Arik – Arik calmly knelt, took the hand, and listened as Vi'hai barely breathed his request. "I'll do it, Vi'hai. I'll take you to Seleya."

Spock moved forward and Sarek came with him. Arik had no training as a katra bearer, but he stayed almost serene, never closing his eyes, but always looking into Vi'hai's.

Vi'hai passed with a breath and Arik caught the hand falling from his temple. He folded it on the dead male's chest. Mekhai, Saavik, and Jdehn drew close by them as if summoned.

It was over.


	36. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

Saavik being cured meant two things to Amanda. The first was that Saavik must host a gathering in her home for those who had helped her. It made sense, except for the fact that her home was unfinished. The lack of furnishings led to Amanda's insistence that the furniture she had delivered was neither charity nor a gift, but a logical necessity. Saavik argued that, on the contrary, she did not _have_ to have the gathering in her unfurnished home and that Amanda and Sarek giving her furniture was _not_ a necessity. It was a gift and so large a one that it might be called charity, and therefor she could not accept, despite being named _guest-friend_ to the House.

Amanda then launched into a convoluted, unending circle of twisted and unrelated statements that no one could call reasonable, including Amanda herself. That did not stop her from making them, in great volume and unstopping frequency. Sarek had finally interceded and told Saavik to accept the gift under whatever label his wife gave it. Acceptance would give Amanda peace and thereby bring peace to the house.

Amanda also started finding excuses for touching Saavik again; small gestures, a brush on the arm, a hand placed lightly on her back. The unexpectedness of them seeped Amanda's presence through Saavik's mental shields. She had already learned on her own that Amanda needed the reassurance of physical contact, and so she said nothing about them, but gritted her sense of privacy against the invasions, and strengthened her mental shielding to not overwhelm the vulnerable human.

When Amanda died a few months later, Saavik sat in her cabin with only the firepot for company, and relived each of those feather light touches and how that presence had felt.

The second thing that made no sense was her guests' insistence on "telling stories" and especially the sort of story they wanted to hear. After Amanda had shared a few of hers and Sarek's interesting missions, and Kirk and McCoy did the same, she right away turned to Saavik.

"Why don't you tell us one now? Tell us something of interest about you."

She had the perfect thing. "I have received my new orders. I will join the research team in investigating the newly discovered _twin jet nebula._"

She didn't need to emphasize the last three words; the phenomenon did it for her by its very existence. Spock immediately began asking questions as she knew he would, but his keen interest raised another thought. _Is he so interested, he would join the research?_ If they could get Spock to be involved, even in only a minor role, the gain would be immeasurable.

And she would have contact with him.

It was possible. He was not staying aboard the _Enterprise_.

Their discussion had Sarek's full interest too, but McCoy's head suddenly dropped against the back of his seat and he gave every sign of being asleep.

Saavik held in a disapproving stare that would melt a ship's hull while she decided if she was allowed to admonish a guest on his behavior. Amanda interrupted.

"The nebula discussion is fascinating--"

That didn't sound sincere at all, since Amanda said with her eyes that she found McCoy's behavior entertaining, even when she shouldn't.

"–but perhaps we can table it for a future time and hear something different. Your shipmates mentioned an incident with a Deltan ambassador. What about that?"

Saavik couldn't be hearing this correctly. Not the part about the crew of the _Aerfen_ mentioning the incident – Saavik knew exactly who would have done that – but the fact that anyone would put it above what she was saying. "Amanda, a twin jet nebula is a discovery of highest interest. It supercedes an incident such as what you have proposed."

"I must disagree. It obviously affects us, since it's someone in diplomatic circles. I've been curious ever since Lieutenant Warfield was unable to finish the story."

Just as Saavik thought: Warfield, aided by Hoskins, no doubt.

"We had some unpleasantness to deal with, and then they brought you in so they could say goodbye." Something dark dimmed the light in those eyes before Amanda managed to move past it.

Apparently Kirk and McCoy agreed on which story they wanted to hear, and she _was_ their hostess, after all. She shared a look with Spock and Sarek of how unreasonable she considered the whole thing, and told them what they wanted to know.

"The ambassador in question was assigned by the Federation to aide the _Aerfen_ in peace negotiations between the Turelans and the Unelitians. However, due to his misconduct, he was removed from duty and a different ambassador was assigned." She stopped.

McCoy blinked. "And?"

She lifted her eyebrows. "I have recounted the incident in its entirety, Doctor."

"But you didn't give any details!"

"I gave those that were important."

"Important!" McCoy shook his head. "You're doing this deliberately, aren't you?"

Kirk raised a hand, looking like he was trying not to laugh. "Take it easy, Bones. Saavik, report."

She tilted her head, but if the captain thought he needed additional information, then she must provide it. "The ambassador arrived on the _Aerfen_ at 19:30 hours. Captain Hunter met him in the transporter room along with Commanders Stuart and Kameko, as well as Lieutenants Hoskins and Warfield, Doctor Aakheltok, and myself."

He held up a hand again, signaling to wait. "Mr. Warfield told us that the ambassador informed you that he was an alien collector?"

"During a banquet," McCoy added.

Sarek's face hardened to stone, and Spock didn't look much different, but Saavik nodded. They had signaled for her not to stop her report. "It is true. I was uncertain of the phrase's meaning, but I was able to discern it by his other statements."

"And he focused on you?"

"Yes, sir."

Amanda still sparkled, but an edge of what turned Sarek's expression hard laid as an undercurrent. "What exactly did he say to you?"

"That he believed someone of my mixed ancestry would be unharmed by his limited ability for Deltan pheromone communication. He stated someone of a Romulan nature knew such intensity as part of their genetics while he had heard Vulcans were capable of managing extreme degrees in mental and physical surges."

She said it calmly now, but reacted differently back then. The ambassador had seemed to hint at _pon farr_, and the way he had smiled at her as he said it mocked her disapproval. It was the latter that kept her from rising out of her seat and walking out. Doing that would have added to his mockery and she wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Even McCoy and Kirk lost their levity when they heard it. The doctor leaned forward. "He _said_ that to you?"

"Yes, Doctor."

Amanda's hand gripped her seat. "And what did you say?"

"I replied, 'Do you ask me a question or offer me a proposition?'"

Kirk choked and McCoy burst out in laughter, while Amanda's gleam came back in full force. The _Aerfen_ crew had reacted in pretty much the same way. Saavik didn't understand it then and she still didn't, but it had taken the Deltan ambassador aback, just as she had intended.

Even Sarek nodded in satisfaction. "I commend you on your handling of the situation. You said this ambassador was removed from duty?"

"Yes, sir. Captain Hunter had him step down immediately and reported him to his superiors."

That was putting it lightly. Hunter had been furious.

Sarek again nodded and Saavik left to replenish the refreshments for her guests.

Spock came to her there. "Your assignment to the nebula's team is excellent. You will rejoin the _Aerfen _afterwards?"

She would. Spock had given her a gift for her new home: a large stellar map, a recreation of the ancient charts made by PreReform Vulcan's warrior tribes to guide them at night. It hung now underneath the statue of the Twilight Eagle, but she was taking it with everything else she treasured when she returned to her ship.

They discussed the nebula until she began returning to the group. Spock stopped her from leaving the room. "Saavik--" He paused. "The forced meld on my part at Srre's... it is your right to bring charges."

She disagreed. "You were required to make the decision for the both of us. It was an action to save my life, and I would have given consent if I was able."

"Most kind."

"And logical."

He raised an eyebrow, but she was practically saying the same thing he had about their shared pon farr on Genesis. So he nodded, and still held her to the spot.

"I have not decided my own choice in my next assignment, although I am most likely working with the diplomatic team on the Klingon peace. Or taking a position with the Academy once more." She waited, sensing there was more. "Perhaps I may contact you? I would appreciate your opinions in either case."

He wanted contact with her again... "I would find that most gratifying."

He nodded, but wasn't done. "Perhaps at some point, you will no longer find it necessary to keep that forged letter."

Why did it seem as if she risked so much to say, "I destroyed it after your first visit to my home. I discovered its lesson does not necessarily hold true in all cases."

He turned to her with an expression that made that risk worth taking. McCoy called out, and Spock walked with her to the other room.

"She won't come."

A cool wind whistled through the four marble aisles at the Hellguard memorial. Only their artificial candles and the subdued lighting at the Hall where Jdehn stood with Arik and Mekhai broke the darkness.

An honor guard had let them pass at the perimeter; they were the only other people here at this hour.

"You are incorrect." Saavik walked out from one of the open aisles without any of them spotting her until she was on top of them.

Jdehn bit off a curse, and Mekhai didn't bother keeping his to himself. He bristled, but at least he didn't make a move. None of them had lost the ability to move silently, but it was creepy having her slip out of the darkness like that. Especially here. At least Arik didn't jump out of his skin like he used to do. He just twitched.

Jdehn didn't say anything else, but turned to the wall at their back: Micar's mural. The Vulcans had actually managed to _swap _out the entire wall without threatening the integrity of the hospital. They even blended it with the rest of the architecture here. The memorial now represented all of Hellguard's victims.

The lighting touched on each painted face. She almost wished it didn't, but wondered if everyone clouded in darkness would really make it any better.

"You know, just weeks ago, I didn't give any of them one thought. And if I did, it wasn't anything good." She moved closer to the wall so the eyes now looked over her head. Some of them were total strangers to her; she had needed to memorize their faces and names. So it struck her how petite Pekhi had been, how massive Strahinja had become...

"Me neither." Mekhai said. "Nothin' good, like you said."

"I had nightmares too," Arik admitted, saying what they hadn't. "And I didn't talk to anybody."

Jdehn looked over to Saavik who stared stone faced at the mural. "Amanda would tell me what the others were doing, even after I said I was uninterested. It was my only contact."

"Yeah," Jdehn said. She understood. "Yeah. The thing is, I thought we should say goodbye. You know?"

The two males nodded, but Saavik darted a glance from the corner of her eyes. "Logical."

Jdehn nearly grinned. "Don't start." She glanced down the marble aisles. "Although..." If she looked for them, she could see the eery patches of blue-white light glowing from the embedded viewscreens. "I'm letting some things out. My time sense, some calculations." She tore away from those aisles. "So I guess it wasn't all bad."

Mekhai didn't say anything, but she had already noticed he used their old accent less than before. And Arik...

Arik stood straight and tall. The kind of energy that only his smile used to reveal now flowed under the surface, and when he returned her gaze, it glowed behind his eyes.

"Did you go to Mt. Seleya?" she asked. Stupid question, because of course he did. He had changed.

"Vi'hai's family was very good to me. They said, if I wanted to stay here, I could use his house while I studied."

"You taking the offer?"

"I think I will. At least for awhile." He had to come back from far away to look at her. "I need to do this and see where it takes me."

She understood that too. She returned to the mural and reached out to touch it. Despite the warmth of its colors, the stone was cold and the darkness turned what brightness it held to stark severity.

_It's like looking at your own gravestone_.

"If you need--" Jdehn's fingers fell down the painting until she dug them in the stone. She had started this; now she had to say the rest of it. "If you need anything and I can help... I'm there. Okay?"

Arik was warm as he placed his hand near hers. "Me too."

Saavik faced her and Jdehn choked down on the old urge to raise herself to as tall as she could be against the other female. "Agreed."

Mekhai looked long and hard at Saavik who calmly held his eyes. At last, he said, "Yeah. Okay."

They stood in silence for a long moment with the wind and shadows. Then, Arik, of course, asked the question Jdehn had been asking herself ever since that afternoon.

"Everything that Mal'Shik said... using things we got from Hellguard... or... someday... having children. Did you really disagree with all of it?"

No one answered him.

Saavik's head turned to look down the aisles marking the four ships captured and brought to Hellguard. Without a word, they drew together in the whistling wind.

Thirty-three of them had left Hellguard; they were the last survivors.

They were only four.


End file.
